GTTC: fresh juice and pulp bread

I have a great teenager.  She's not too cool to have fun with her parents.  She's curious, smart, and fully engaged in life.  And when her phone is taken away because she did not fulfill her part in the academic contract we've drawn up, she's even more delightful than usual.  I guess when you're not spending your whole life laying on the couch texting, then making juice, baking with mom, and even smiling for the camera is an alternative to total boredom.

Tonight, we juiced some carrots, apples, oranges, celery, and beets.  The carrots and beets were from the garden.  I always save the beets for last because I like to watch them color the whole concoction a dark and gorgeous shade of pink.  With the pulp, we made a pulp bread, following my favorite recipe for banana bread, only substituting the pulp you see in the foreground of the photo above, for the bananas.  My kids think they're eating health food.  Whatever.  If it makes them feel good, so be it.  For the real deal - try Holly's recipe for pulp muffins.  See her post here (where I drew inspiration) for a much more wholesome, truly healthy muffin.  What are you making this week?  Post below to share.

In other news, my seedlings are finally in the ground, but each year the same thing happens.  For weeks, I lovingly care for my seedlings under the grow lights.  When I'm finally ready to let my precious little plants leave the nest, I put them in the coldframe and then... forget about them.  So disappointing.

GTTC: grilled corn on the cob with fresh herb butter

I may have mentioned this before, but my husband holds a weekly backyard BBQ.  Sometimes one or more friends come by, sometimes, he's out there standing solo over the charcoal grill, beer in one hand, spatula in the other.  There are benefits and drawbacks...

His walking back and forth from the backyard to the kitchen inevitably creates a big mess.  And each trip through the sliding glass door invites about 3 mosquitoes in the house.  They seek me out immediately.  At some point, the cat enters (with a waiting group of 3 mosquitoes) and jumps immediately on the table to start eating our food.  I'll be downstairs but know she's up to no good because I hear the quick clink! clink! clink! of a spoon knocking around in a bowl.  Most importantly, there's got to be something unhealthy about a heavy weekly dose of carcinogenic red meat, chips, soda, and potato salad.

Of course, there are some nice things about the weekly BBQ.  Despite my health concerns, he's creating fond memories for the kids.  He likes to see what's going on in the garden.  He's made special creations like the Satan burger, his own version of a spicy tomato condiment, grilled blue-cheese stuffed peppers, and ultimately, he wants to please me.  When I said it'd be nice to have some bacon-wrapped turkey, I entered the kitchen a few hours later to find a plate of turkey kebabs, wrapped in bacon and ready for the grill.  This week, after something I'd mentioned earlier, he was inspired to grill some corn for me.  I made some herbed butter full of fresh rosemary, thyme, and oregano.  It was delicious on the corn.

As a side note, something was not quite right about it and it kept nagging at me.  I eventually figured out that what didn't seem right was that we were eating corn in June.  Though it's so endearing that my husband would go to the supermarket and buy corn from who-knows-where, we're not harvesting corn in Maryland yet, and it just didn't feel right.  Maybe it's purely psychological, but it also didn't taste right.  I'll have him try this again with local summer corn in a couple of months and will report back. I'm sure that post will include the words - SWEET...CRISP...BUTTERY...

What are you growing and cooking this week?  I'd love to know about it!

GBBD - June 2012

If I spare you the commentary, you'll get to check out all that's blooming in my garden on this Garden Blogger's Bloom Day as well as visit May Dreams Gardens for more.  Do leave a comment before you go though so I can see what's going on in your part of the world too!

GTTC: French toast with berries

Tired of my strawberry posts?  As you can see from our breakfast, the strawberries are getting fewer and the blueberries are ripening.  This French toast was particularly delicious made with a Challah-like raisin walnut bread.

A less lovely vision - this cauliflower...ugh.

And this week, my daughter turned 14 years old.  How did I ever get old enough to have a 14 year old?  Below, my little one had cleared the table of its usual crap, set up the "centerpiece" and got the apples ready to make her sister's apple-mulberry birthday pie.  Seems like just yesterday, this blog was fledgling and the pie said, "11"...

So I'm a little nosy, what's in your garden hod this week and what are you doing with it?  Post about it with a link to Greenish Thumb and add your post below - looking forward to reading about it!

GTTC: strawberry-rhubarb slump

This was my first attempt at a slump.  I rooted for this dessert as soon as I read about it in the Joy of Cooking. A slump is the underdog of all wonderful warm desserts you make with berries: pie, tart, cobbler, crumb, crisp.  It's an unfussy sweet version of the classic one-pot chicken and dumplings.

For this slump, add a cup of water and a 1/2 cup sugar to a pot with a tight-fitting lid.  Next, add a few stalks of rhubarb cut into pieces, and a few handfuls of strawberries.  Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, make a dough of 1 1/2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 cup buttermilk, 4 tablespoons melted butter.  Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until just incorporated.  Drop spoonfuls of the dough into the simmering fruit.  Cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.  The dumplings should be firm and dry to the touch.  Serve with whipped cream, ice cream, vanilla yogurt, etc...

Well, my strawberries are nearing the end of their season.  So sad.  But as a sweet consolation, there are blueberries ripening two by two, and raspberry flowers in bloom!  What are you harvesting and cooking?  I'd love to see.  Post about it with a link to Greenish Thumb so others can see what other GTTC participants are doing.  See you next week!

Gardening and Immediacy

My little one and my father transplanting a Chinese herb
  

I had a great neighbor who has since moved away.  On day one, he invited us over for empanadas.  He and his wife were perfect neighbors for first time homeowners to have.  Old enough to know the neighborhood stories, young enough to hang out from time to time and share a bottle of wine.  As we settled in and began to make some changes around the house, the well-intentioned nay-saying began, "The city is not going to take those boards away unless you take all the nails out".   "Every piece of tinsel has to be removed or they won't recycle the tree".  "You shouldn't go up on the slope because there is poison ivy there".  "You can't grow vegetables here because the soil is all clay".  It got to the point where I tried to do household tasks at odd hours hoping I wouldn't get caught.

Good thing we're stubborn.  My husband didn't remove the nails nor the tinsel, and I both climbed the slope and grew vegetables in the clay.

This posting is a little late, but I attended the International Master Gardener's Conference back in October of 2011.  The sessions have been largely forgotten, but I did attend a session by speakers Janet Macunovich and Steven Nikkila.  I'm not a handout keeper, and in classes, I prefer to listen rather than take notes, so I probably don't retain as much info as your average attendee, but there are many parts of Janet and Steve's lecture that were so interesting and important and pieces keep coming back to me in my life.

One point they made was about IMMEDIACY.  As a gardener, if someone asks you for help, avoid jargon.  SHOW them how to do what they need to do.  You want to make it doable for the novice gardener - and for them to feel the excitement of it.  She shared an example of an inexperienced gardener friend who was suddenly motivated to move a tree.  And during the worst part of the year to do it!  Despite the chance that the tree might suffer or not even make it, she helped him move it anyway.  There's an excitement that gets into us - you're a gardener - you know this feeling too.  

This makes me think of my neighbor.  It's true there was poison ivy on the slope.  I got a case so bad I went to the hospital (and I'm a tough cookie).  But when I got better, I got back on the slope to do more work up there.  It's true it's VERY difficult to grow vegetables in clay.  But I tried, and then I learned.

This also makes me think of an interaction I recently had at work.  Some of our students held a plant sale - everything was $1!  I bought things like chives, ferns, parsley.  Great deal.  Later, one of my friends (a particularly exuberant friend) bought some seedlings too and was so incredibly delighted about it!  In her box, that she was showing me, she had a lettuce seedling and a beet seedling and was telling me she was going to have fresh salads for her family all summer.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that the lettuce seedling wouldn't provide enough leaves for one salad, that the plant would probably bolt in a couple of weeks, and that the one beet seedling she bought would produce exactly one beet.  A beet she paid a dollar for.  I felt a little badly about not sharing the information, but I thought of my neighbor, and I thought of Janet and Steve.  I figure if she gets her hands dirty and does a little experimenting, she may catch the gardening bug - it's not difficult to.  She may complain that the lettuce didn't produce enough to garnish a sandwich.  She may ask questions.  And that is when I'll show her how to sow her own row of beets, and how to start her own salad bed.  

GTTC: strawberry spinach salad with herb cheese fritter

I knew this second try at cheese-making would be more successful than the first one.  This time, I added fresh herbs from the garden as well as some salt.  I also actually squeezed the cheese in the cloth rather than just let it sit with a heavy pot on top.  When I first tasted this cheese, I exclaimed aloud, "Oh my god.  Oh. My. God" (and then felt extremely compelled to call my sister and my husband).  It was that good.  The dinner salad was fantastic with strawberries from the garden, spinach from the garden, walnuts, a balsamic vinaigrette and the panko and herb encrusted cheese fritter.  A meal I was quite proud of through and through!

We're solidly in the middle of strawberry season, and this year, I'm not making jam with the large bowlfuls, but freezing them in small bags.  I know I'll be thankful later when we want smoothies, pancakes, or simply some frozen fruit to snack on.  

Are your seedlings in the ground yet (cause mine aren't...)?  What's in your edible garden right now?  Join the Garden to Table Challenge by posting about what you're harvesting and cooking, then link below.  It's fun! More details here...