Urban gardening, composting and other ways to upset the neighbors.

To solve the basement flooding problem, bring in an excavator and dig out a massive trench from the basement door to the end of the backyard.  Build retaining walls.

Get some local boards and make raised beds.

Level these beds with scrap wood/stone blocks left from previous projects.  Helps if you know a stone mason.

Throw in some sod clods or roots in the bottom.

 Fill raised beds with the dirt pile left from excavation (this will take several days).  The rest of the dirt for the compost beds will be delivered by truckload in the spring.

Don't forget to plant garlic in the fall!

Add some stone sculpture.

Fencing will happen later on.

Build a compost pile out of a branch you take down.  Line with burlap and cover with a weighted tarp.

Make pretty paths to the doors, but leave the extra stone piled up against the house.

Spread out whatever dirt is left around the back lawn in anticipation of tilling that area in the spring for another garden.  Add sculpture that looks suspiciously like a gravestone.

By now, the neighbors should be standing in their driveways shaking their heads and asking if you have a 'real job'!  Just wait until spring when planting begins.  I can't wait to see the looks on neighbors' faces when I'm out there, barefoot, talking to the plants.

I've been keeping busing working on projects and I am still processing things that I brought out of the garden before we moved.

Herb garden.

 Sugar beets, peeled and chopped into small pieces, to make into sugar beet molasses.  I also have been freezing the pulp to add to baked goods later on.

 Chicken stock.

Haven't even made it halfway through taking the sunflower seeds from their heads yet.  I think we will be set for a while.

I have also been working on Jon's sweater...again.  This time, I am designing the pattern myself (except for the cables).  This is the back.  Handspun wool, of course.

I also have a job at a farmstand.  Some days I work at the register, some days I am left alone in the bakery to make the day's breads, cookies, coffee cakes, doughnuts, and whatever else I think people will want to eat.  I am very happy.

New house, old harvest Yarn and fiber for sale.

We are all moved into a nice two bedroom house in a quiet neighborhood of a large city.  It was a very long process involving lots of sorting, cleaning, moving things, and of course, lots of stress.  Hopefully this situation will be a good one, and so far, it mostly is.

There are lots of new shops and markets to discover.  A middle eastern grocery sells Halal chicken and extremely large bags of rice.

25 lbs of jasmine rice

 I might have to turn this into a tote bag.

There are two Russian grocery stores nearby.  At the smaller store, a very nice Russian lady with limited English has conversations with me about the need for each of us to practice our new languages.  She also helped us find the very best non-expensive kolbasa in the meat case.  I LOVE being able to find affordable Russian food again and hope to be able to discover new recipes while practicing my Russian.  They also have extremely large bags of flour.

How could I pass up 50 lbs of flour?

You can see a theme here.  Now that we have a whole house, why not start buying goods in bulk?  The local doughnut shop sells food-grade buckets.  We have a small chest freezer.  I am very much looking forward to a winter of plenty.

We are taking this opportunity to go out more, explore new shops, take walks...this is already becoming fun.  I don't know how long we can keep up eating 2-3 dozen doughnuts a week, though...

Because we moved again during harvest season, I have had to improvise food storage methods.

Sunflowers and onions hanging.  The sunflowers weren't ready when I cut them, so they are drying near a dehumidifier in the basement.

Carrots, green tomatoes, sugar beets, and rutabaga.

More green tomatoes, and Amish pie pumpkin, and some winter squash.

 Dried and canned goods

More dried goods and spice cabinet

Before and after the move, I have also been saucing apples, dehydrating apples, canning tomato sauce, sorting dried beans, and soon I will start making a molasses-type syrup from the sugar beets.

 I processed 60+ lbs of drops apples

 Glorious apple peeler and slicer.  I don't know what I would do without it.

 Just two batches of unsweetened applesauce.

Kidney and yin-yang dried beans.

The backyard is one giant retaining wall project, but after that is over, Jon and I will be making a small garden space.  I get to really think planting over and practice some French intensive space-saving methods.

I will also be selling yarn, fiber, and knit things on ebay.  Some are made by me, some are from a farm back home.  I am very happy to sell things outside of ebay, too.  I have lots of boxes to go though, but please comment here or send me a message if you're looking for something specific.  I can also knit custom items.  There will be niddy noddies and antique carders listed, too.  My ebay page is located here. *Page is now active and has several items listed.

Peach Jam Recipes, Jon's new sweater, ice cream, and...moving again

Where to begin!  So much has been going lately with my family, the garden, and some big decisions.  We are moving again.  This time it is not a rush decision to get out of a bad situation, but instead a thoughtful decision to help Jon's family and finally be able to save up some money.  Jon's Gramma's house in Massachusetts needs to be looked after long-term.  I hate moving, and I'm not looking forward to being in Mass. again...but having a whole yard and house for very reasonable rent is too good to pass up.  Who wants to help me pack?!

And year, the garden seems to get ahead of me.  The apartment garden is right here, I don't need to get a ride, but I kinda gave up on it when I saw how slow things were and that I really should have improved the soil...which wasn't going to happen when I knew we would be moving sometime.  At my parents'...I should have been in there every day maintaining it, but that is impossible for me.  Squash bugs have now gotten all of my cucurbits (squashes, cucumbers).  Tomatoes are just starting to come in.  Rutabagas are the size of a cabbage.  I see two very large Amish pie pumpkins way out in the back.  Sunflowers are tall.  I'm not sure how it will work with moving and things still going in the garden.  I'm hoping to come back before a major frost.  I should have a very large quantity of winter squash, rutabaga, turnips, cherry tomatoes, green tomatoes and dried beans to share/trade if anyone is interested.  My parents also have tons of sweet corn, cukes, zucchini, summer squash, potatoes and tomatoes for sale!

Until I have my own orchard, I keep an eye out for cheap ways to get fruit and preserve it for the winter.  An orchard near Jon's parents', Breezelands Orchards, sells seconds peaches, a file box full for $10.  These peaches need to be used within 24 hours before they start to spoil...and this year, I got two boxes.  This led to a marathon of peach preserving that did nearly last 24 hours.  I took over my mother-in-law's kitchen and patiently worked over the stove, peeling peaches, stirring sugary mixtures, boiling water.  I still have no idea how many pints I ended up with because I have filled an entire cupboard.  Some of the nicer peaches were sliced and canned in a light syrup, the rest went to jam.

I do not use pectin when making jam, so I ended up taking a basic peach jam recipe and then making my own variations.

Base:
7 cups peach chunks
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cups sugar

Variations:
Vanilla cinnamon: 1 tsp really good vanilla, 1 tsp cinnamon
Blueberry spice: 1 pint blueberries (then enough peach chunks to make a total of 7 cups of fruit), 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1 tsp almond extract
Apricot: about 1 cup diced dried apricots -or- 2 cups cubed fresh apricots (then enough peach chunks to make a total of 7 cups of fruit), 1 tsp almond extract, 1 tsp vanilla
Cherry:  about 1 cup diced dried pitted cherries -or- 2 cups cubed fresh pitted cherries (then enough peach chunks to make a total of 7 cups of fruit), 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp almond extract
Mango: 1 peeled, pitted, cubed ripe mango (then enough peach chunks to make a total of 7 cups of fruit), 1 tsp rum extract
Spiced peach: 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp allspice

*Try these at your own risk.  These are not proven recipes as of yet, just food experiments =)

I have also been experimenting with ice cream.  My favorite recipes come from David Lebovitz.  Jon's favorite ice cream is rum raisin, and he LOVED David's recipe so much that it lasted one day.  I can wait to try more of his recipes out (when getting the link I just stopped and stared at his recipes for ten minutes).  Maybe tonight will be avocado coconut...but for now, I'm working on Jon's sweater.  Again.  This time, I'm not pulling it out, now matter how silly it looks.  Pictures to come when it actually looks like something.

Butternut Breakfast Puffs

 

 Jon and I are addicted to doughnuts.  And not the cheap-easy-to-find kind.  We of course like the more expensive hand made ones that you find at farmstands or at Donut Dip.  These breakfast puffs are my attempt to recreate that taste at home, slightly healthier, and on a budget.

I had some frozen butternut squash from my parents' garden that needed to be used up, but no milk.  And I had a hungry husband looking anxiously into the kitchen.  I needed to come up with a treat using what I had! The result?

These puffs are BETTER than doughnuts.

(Adapted from Food52)

1/3 cup sea salted butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cup a.p. flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 cup cooked, pureed winter squash -or- pumpkin

In a small pot, melt the butter over medium high heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until nutty and slightly browned.  Allow to cool to room temperature.

Cream sugar, egg, and squash.  Stir in room temperature brown butter.  Mix dry ingredients together, then add to wet until well combined.

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin, and add batter evenly (I like to use the last drips from the melted butter pot to grease pans).

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  

Now, for the amazing part, which I discovered by accident.

Brown another 1/2 cup of sea salted butter (I didn't meant to brown it this time...but WOW).

Mix together 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon.

Dip each puff into the butter, then roll in the cinnamon sugar.

Best when warm, but don't eat them all at once...if anyone is looking.

Makes 12.

17th Century Spice Cake

17th Century Spice Cake

I found this recipe while looking at the Plimoth Plantation website and dreaming of going back in time...It is more of a sweet bread than a cake.  I didn't have aniseeds or mace, so I used ginger and nutmeg instead.  I also substituted chopped candied ginger instead of raisins.  Looks and smells lovely, can't wait until it cools enough to eat!