Some of the Delicious Food We've Been Eating

We have been eating well here in NW Iowa. I wanted to share some of the recipes, for anyone interested. As well as a batch of recent pics. Here's a shot from Thanksgiving, we're pretty low key about it.

Roasted Pork. This one was fun because I used dry sherry for the first time. Turned out really good. RECIPE it's called Chinese Roast Pork, probably because of the soy sauce and ginger.  We used a big 4lb tenderloin instead of the shoulder that recipe calls for. Mostly because I thawed the wrong piece of meat. Still good.

Orange Sweet Potatoes
I can't find the recipe we used for this. But we made thick coins out of some long skinny sweet potatoes. (Skins removed) We layered them in a pie dish, (prettily, because this was for Thanksgiving) and put in orange zest, some orange peel, and butter and brown sugar. Then we baked them for 40-50 minutes until the sweet potatoes were soft.

Cranberry and Citrus Salad
I boiled a cup of cranberries in some water and sugar with a cinnamon stick. Not long, just a few minutes. Then I poured the hot syrup and soft cranberries on top of a bowl of nicely cut and arranged citrus slices. I had grapefruits, oranges, and clementines in mine. Put in the fridge to chill.

Of course I've made my annual batch of Pumpkin Chip Cookies. We've had endless varieties of apples/butter/oatmeal. Various soups. I had a GREAT crop of leeks this year. So we've had a couple versions of my usually made up on the spot Potato Leek soup. 

Now Yule is coming up fast. We may need to switch things up and do a chicken for that holiday, I'm a little bit tired of pork. :) Dave has informed me that stuffing is de rigueur if chicken is to appear at a holiday meal.  lol

From NW Iowa, me and the family wish you and yours all the best. May your new year be a bright one! Full of good food and family.
-Jennie

Getting Stuff Done

I always have a lot of irons in the fire. Projects that get started, but then have to be put on hold for one reason or another. I'll work on different ones as time and conditions allow and the order in which they get finished is pretty random. I've been told that this trait is most common among women, while men prefer to start a project and do nothing else until that one is done. This is certainly true in my house. :-D

This weekend was really busy, even after a big thing had to be canceled. (My boys always come first, and when things have to give for them, that's just the way it has to be.) Lots going on and I had a couple of successes that I wanted to share. :-D

My potato harvest is huge! I dug up the last of the red potatoes this weekend. I haven't even tried to count them, if I do anything I'll weigh them, because there's too many to count. I had 2 10 foot long rows of potatoes. The first row had about 5' of Yukon Golds, and those got harvested a couple of months ago, with a good amount that sadly didn't store well. The reds took longer to finish, but really made good use of their time. With the last of the potatoes out, I'm that much closer to having my garden wrapped up for winter. Now, I just need to watch the weather because any day now we'll have a frost that will kill the tomato vines and the last of the basil. I'll need to snatch the green tomatoes and basil bits worth saving. (With a bit of luck I can ripen those green tomatoes on my counter and extend the fresh tomato season into November.) Only at that point will I rip out the vines (and their supports) and put that last bit of the gardens to bed.

Rowen and I went to O. City (the small town just north of us) and helped the community gardens there with their winter clean up. They clear the whole garden every year, filling the rather large compost bins to the top and then hauling away anything else. They pull out all the stakes and fences and put everything neatly in the shed for winter. Rowen and I helped out by rolling up endless lengths of chicken wire. Rowen was a big help. :-D We didn't stay long as Rowen got tired quickly, but I was able to chat with some folks and get a handle on how the garden started up and a bit about how they operate it. These are important things for me to know if I'm going to have any chance at all to start a garden in my new town. (Things work a bit differently out here than they did in Des Moines.) Plus, it was nice to just be outside for awhile, as the weather was wonderful. We did score some gleanings for our troubles. A whole bunch of lettuce, some thyme, a ton of carrots and some jalapenos.

The carrots went down to the basement to join the other food storage. I hadn't included carrots in my winter food storage experiment for a couple of reasons. 1) I'm not certain I have a high enough humidity place to store them properly, 2) my crop was a failure and 3) We don't eat a large amount of carrots. I'll keep loose tabs on these carrots and maybe I'll include them in my plans for next year, depending on how this winter goes.

The jalapenos went into the batch of salsa I made up on Sunday. Mmmm... salsa. Totally worth the effort of keeping the tomato vines alive this long. I thought I had finished canning a couple of weeks ago, but this weekend the pile of tomatoes was once again bordering on ridiculous. So, maybe this is my last batch of canning, we'll see. :-D

As I was elbow deep in salsa for dinner time Sunday, I got a little creative with our dinner.
Pumpkin Pancakes was what I whipped out of my magic hat.
(I had leftover pumpkin sitting in the fridge from the cookie making, and a wheat pancake recipe)

Spiced Pumpkin Pancakes:
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp nutmeg
2 cups milk
2 eggs well beaten
3 Tbsp pumpkin (cooked puree)

Mix dry ingredients, add wet and mix thoroughly. Cook on a greased griddle.
It's whole wheat, plus some pumpkin to count as veggies. That means it's a healthy dinner right? :-D


Last but not least, I got all the blocks finished for the dining room window quilt. The picture above is a sampling of 4 of the different blocks, I made close to a dozen different blocks to keep things interesting. I calculated that 128 blocks were needed to frame the two fabric panels and fill the whole window. I'm hoping that this weekend I can clear a space big enough (and out of toddler reach) to lay out everything and sew all the pieces together. My sewing time for the next few days is dedicated to finishing Rowen's Samhain costume. So, even though I'm itching to see what my quilt looks like together, it'll have to wait until Saturday.

Summer Solstice

It was quite the weekend. Fairly productive though.
Friday: Summer Solstice! The longest day of the year! A beautiful day. I was up early, done with work early and out in my garden by 5. All my hairy vetch is in bloom. Pretty purple blossoms all over the garden. Hopefully pulling in lots of pollinators, my beans and tomatoes and eggplant are all blooming too.
The Earl May broccoli is heading. No signs of heading on the Romanesco broccoli.
My swiss chard got eaten again. *sigh* What eats only swiss chard? It ignored tasty rows of lettuce and peas, and devoured the little swiss chard. I'll try again this fall maybe.
I brushed the dirt away from an onion, they are looking good. Slightly larger than golf ball sized. All healthy looking. :-) I'm hopeful.
Harvest:
83 grams of peas
70 grams of lettuce.

I made the garlic scapes into soup Friday. It was delicious. If you live in the Northern part of this country, you can still find scapes this week, but then they'll be gone for the year.
Here's my garlic scape soup recipe for those interested.

Jennie's Garlic Scape Soup
2 Dozen garlic scapes, flower trimmed off, cut into 1" pieces
3 potatoes, in 1/2" dice
2 Tbsp olive oil
5 cups veggie stock
1/4 cup heavy cream
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Saute scapes in bottom of pot in olive oil for 2-5 minutes.
Add potatoes and stock, cover and simmer for 20 minutes
Remove from heat and puree. (I just sorta mashed some of it and that was fine, puree is just a nicety.)
Season with salt and pepper, whisk in cream.

This was a super cheap, super tasty, fast meal and it was enough for 2 dinners for Dave and I.


Saturday: First Day of Summer.
I scored 3.5 quarts of strawberries for 8$. Some from my Daddy's garden, and some from the farmers market. Two portions are in the freezer, and a large portion is in the fridge waiting for me to find all my canning stuff so I can can up some strawberry/rhubarb jam.
Took lettuce and peas to my parents.
Mom and I worked on the dress some. It's going to look so pretty! :-)

Sunday:
Harvest: 94 grams of peas
Oh my.. the peas just won't stop. :-) We had super ramen for lunch. Lots of peas and green onions and the little baby carrots out of my garden. Sauteed in oil and soy sauce, dumped on top of tasty ramen. Mmmm.. :-) Almost caught up on peas after that.Got my seed box all organized and my new seeds for fall put away. I've got lots of good seed for stuff. I don't know if I'll ever get it all planted, but at least I'm trying. Right now my seed storage consists of a tackle box and lots of little plastic bags from the local bead shop. It seems to be working so far. It keeps things organized, it keeps it all together and it keeps bugs out. It's not ideal because sunlight can get in through the lids, but I'll wrap it in something dark and put it in the basement for winter and it'll be ok.

Mmmm... Turnips... and Soup!

I discovered a love of turnips this weekend. There was a pretty pile of them at my local farmers market and I was looking for things to throw in a soup. I nibbled on them raw as I was chopping and they were very good! They made an excellent addition to my Chicken and Noodle soup. I might try and grow some of these tasty veggies this fall. Apparently they are one of the easiest, most nutritious plants a gardener can grow. With both the bulbs and the greens being edible.


Jennie's Chicken and Noodle Soup (version: Spring 2008)
Chicken stock
Chicken leg & thigh
5 stalks of Celery
4 average sized Turnips
3-4 Carrots
Half an Onion
bunch of Green Onions
Thyme
Sage
garlic
shell noodles

Put stock in large pot, boil chicken parts in the covered pot with enough stock to cover them, with the garlic, green onions and half the Thyme and Sage.
When chicken is done 20 minutes or so, lift it out of the stock. Add 2 cups of water and any remaining stock to the stock/spices mix still in the pot. Add diced carrots, turnips and onions, cover and simmer.
While the veggies are cooking, separate the chicken from the bone and chunk it. Add the chunks back to the pot.
Cook, covered at a simmer for at least an hour, more if you like. Add remaining half of Thyme and Sage about 15 minutes before serving.
When you add the Thyme ans Sage, cook the pasta in a separate container, following package directions. Drain pasta and add to soup right before serving.

Salt and Pepper to taste.

This recipe made enough soup for Dave and I to have dinner on it and lunch the next day. Super with some leftover bread. :-)
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Harvests this weekend:
303 grams of mixed greens
131 grams of rhubarb

I'll have PEAS later this week!! I have a boat load of little baby peas on the vines, with lots more blossoms right behind 'em. :-) Mmmm peas.