Chicken Feet

As my departure approaches I have been working my way through the bounty of the freezer. One little treasure I acquired this summer when Flat Point Farm had their pastured chicken sale was 6 pounds of chicken feet. Yes, chicken feet. Thanks to two excellent blogs, Elise at Simply Recipes, and Kathy at Just the Right Size, I had a foolproof protocol for making this rich and delicious stock. I have never been at all squeamish about dismantling a turkey carcass for soup including using a hammer to crack the bones. But, when I was turned into Madge the Manicurist for these little chicken parts cutting off their nails, I was forced to come to terms with the creaturehood of my food source. This connection is not a bad thing.First you boil the feet for five minutes. This step is really about washing them. Then drain and cool. Remove any hanging outer skin and clip toenails. For full recipe see the websites referenced above.

Paperwhites

I came up with a perfect solution to drooping paperwhites. You know how they are all straight and tall until they start to bloom? Well I decided to put them in flower vases instead of dishes this year.

Stone Soup

Well despite my whining that I have nothing in my fall garden I did decide to make a soup that is entirely from ingredients from my garden. First I found some old Vermont Cranberry Beans that I had harvested two seasons ago and soaked two cups of beans overnight. Then I gathered a few potatoes that emerged when I was cleaning out the potato bed the other day. Add to that some kale and garden onions and garlic and I had the beginnings of a respectable kale soup. But the real flavor enhancer came from the freezer. It was a ratatouille. I decided to run it through the juicer and use its juices in the soup. It yielded about 3 cups of rich liquid.It is a very tasty fall soup. A similar recipe is here.

Pine Needles

When I first built this raised bed garden, I put wood chips in the pathways. They did not do a very good job of holding down the weeds. For the last three years I have resorted to filling the pathways with pine needles from the scrub pines I have growing in the yard.First I rake and spot weed the pathways. Then I fill it in with the pine needles I have raked up. It is the kind of job you can do one row at a time. I'll probably complete half of the rows this winter and the other half next spring. The acidity seems to hold down the weeds.

New Year's Resolutions

Every now and then it is good to write about what does not work out in the garden. So this is an entry about what is NOT ... not about what IS.

How is it that I have ended up with nothing in my garden this fall? Was it my foolish affair with 33 tomato plants? Was it my THINKING that I was putting in Butternut squash but it turned out to be summer squash? (In the end I had fresh zucchini into October) Was it my decision NOT to plant sweet potatoes this year?

And what about what I did plant? I have Swiss chard that will not grow (why IS that?) And THE saddest looking Brussels sprouts on the entire planet. About the only thing that produces is some not very energetic kale.

Perhaps it was simple lack of planning. Or maybe it was laziness. I COULD have cleaned out that bed of green beans and started some rutabaga.

So I have been out searching answers to my failed crops. Let's start with the Swiss Chard. I planted it late in the fall and I bought plants from a local garden center. I think next year I will plant in spring and sow directly in the ground. I will try a variety like Fordhook Giant. I will also sweeten up the soil with a little lime.

As for the Brussels Sprouts. I made a choice to hand pick the cabbage worms this summer. Now if only I had a good recipe for cabbage worm soup, I would have had a harvest. So next year I will sweeten up the soil with a little lime, I will water more faithfully than I did this season, and I will side dress with a nitrogen fertilizer when they are a foot tall. And I will either cover the crop and or use some Safers garden dust. And I will sacrifice the bottom 6 leaves or so and top off the plant as frost approaches. And in case you do not believe me when I say this is a puny crop.

Here is a pile of sprouts BEFORE cleaning

and on the right is what I yielded AFTER cleaning

The Garlic

It has been a month since I planted my garlic. Nearly all varieties have poke through the grass mulch. Mostly they are busy making roots right now. Tis is a good time to check the crop for any doubles that might have ended up in the ground and to separate them. These two 4x8 raised beds provide room for about 180 head of garlic. You would think that would be enough for a family of two. And usually it is, but this year for some reason I am going through my 2008 crop much faster. Part of the reason is that I relied entirely on my own crop for seed garlic this year. That reduce the crop by 12%. And this summer I was pretty generous in giving it away



One variety is called Place Monge. I named it from a head of garlic I bought at the Sunday organic market in Paris two summers ago. I have actually never tasted it ... each year I have plowed my entire crop into seed for the next year. I now have three rows of it. Other varieties that have done well this year are Carpathian, a Rocambole from Poland, and Pskem, a Purple Stripe from Uzbekistan.

One lesson I learrned during fall planting this year is this. Porcelain garlics like Music Pink tend to have only four, sometimes five cloves. In the past, I have saved the largest heads for planting stock and used up the smaller four clove heads. However, the individual cloves on a four clove head are actually BIGGER than the individual cloves on heads with 6 or 7 cloves per head. So in the future I will save the heads with fewer but bigger individual cloves as planting stock. Size of clove matters when you are planting.

When I had finished my planting last month, I had no room left for a softneck variety that had done quite well called Loicano. So I prepared a small patch of a 4x4 bed in the garden and planted two rows of it.A good place to browse through pictures of seed stock is at the Heirloom Vegetable Garlic Archive. And the best place to buy seed stock that I have found is Filaree Farm in Washington State.

Over wintering

I solved the problem of how to over winter rosemary in New England. Last year I successfully used the a wall-o-water to protect my rosemary plant from winter frost.

I have heard people describe working with wall-o-waters as trying to wrestle with an octopus. I have found a way that takes out the wrestling component. Place a bucket over the rosemary plant. Slide the empty wall-o-water over the bucket. Then fill the sleeves with water going 12 to 6 and 3 to 9 and then filling in the sleeves in between. When all 24 sleeves are filled with water, slide out the bucket and the wall-o-water will make a little tepee around your rosemary plants.Why I failed to think of this as a solution to my artichoke problem, I cannot imagine. But last spring, when I uncovered my winter protection to find not a trace of artichokes, it dawned on me. Why not try the wall-o-waters here? Maybe this year????

Getting Back in Gear

Now that election season is over and I have securely delivered Virginia to the blue column, I am back here for garden clean up. I have decided that for the next week I will write EVERY day about SOMETHING in the garden, no matter how small. I have been editing myself lately saying ..."Who's interested in THAT?" or "I wrote about THAT two years ago." No more self editing.So let me tell you what I did yesterday. My compost operation suffers from a lack of brown. So I decided that this year I would use the lawn mower to "collect and chop" the leaves and bag them for use during the year. So simple !!! Make one pass under the tree and the basket fills right up. Slide a plastic bag over the catcher and turn it upside down.

Marianne's Apple Pie

I am NOT a fan of anything that involves flour. I tremble at the idea of making a decent pie crust and for that reason have avoided making pies all my life. But every time I invite my friend Marianne to dinner she brings THE most perfect apple pie. So when Marianne offered a "pie workshop" one rainy morning earlier this month, I decided I needed to attend.

Marianne's Deep Dish Apple Pie
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Filling:
8 Cortland or Macs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
sprinkling of cinnamon
3 Tbs butter cut into dots
Peel, core and quarter apples. Slice quarters into four equal slices. Sprinkle, sugar, flour and cinnamon over apples and shake the bowl (Do NOT mix it up, just SHAKE the bowl). Set aside.

Pie Crust:
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup Canola Oil
8 Tbsp COLD water

Place flour and salt in a bowl stir with a fork. TO the oil add the cold water and whisk until mixed. Add to the flour and stir with a fork. Do not over mix. It should look like this:Divide in half and place between two sheets of wax paper. Roll out until it is larger than the pie plate you are using. Keep the dough round by using the rolling pin as a radius to the circle of the pie and roll in a rounded fashion out from the center like this:After you have placed the first crust in the pie plate, add the filling, and dot with butter. Then roll out the second crust. Remove excess dough and pinch lower and upper crusts together. Then crimp with thumb and index finger around the edge of the plate:Slice openings in the crustSprinkle with sugar and place in a 350 degree oven. Check after 50 minutes. Filling should be bubbling and crust golden but not brown.May I recommend a a godsend that I have acquired recently. It is called a pie crust bag and it make rolling out the dough much easier for a beginner.

First Frost

Why does it always catch me by surprise? I should know by now that still, clear nights in October are potentials. So gone is the lingering basil ... the dozen or so tomatoes ... the dahlias. And like someone who was standing partly on shore and partly still in the water of a summer garden, I am now firmly on shore. Any reluctance to put the garden to bed, has vanished and I am now in earnest on the other side of summer. *sigh*

Russian Olive vs. Autumn Olive: Inquiring Minds Want to Know

I am no expert here, but yes there is a difference between the two . They are both from the Oleaster Family and both are listed as invasive. Russian Olive's scientific name is Elaeagnus angustifolia and the Autumn Olive's is Elaeagnus umbellata. Here in New England, at least, it is the Autumn Olive that is our invasive nemesis.
Perhaps the best way to tell them apart is that Russian Olive has stiff thorns, and the silvery scales that adorn only the bottom side of an Autumn Olive leaf, are on both sides of a Russian Olive leaf. And this time of year, one would see on the Russian Olive a more yellow to orange colored fruit, instead of the bright red of the Autumn Olive.

While I am no fan of this invasive, I must say that I have grown to love the fragrance of their flowers in the air in late May. The first whiff just stops me in my tracks. And their high density of the antioxident, lycopene, has SOME looking to make a cash crop out of the pest. Check this out.

Autumn Olive Recipe Time

I have a confession to make. If it weren't for my Autumn Olive Jam Recipe, I would have lots fewer readers. It seems that all over the country people are wondering what they can do with the fruit of these invasives.

I still have jars of jam from last year, so this year I thought I would make fruit leather. All summer I had been meaning to buy a dehydrator, and here I am a the end of the season without one, so this recipe will be for the oven dried variety of fruit leather.

My objective in making the fruit leather was to use it cut up in small chunks the size of dried cranberries to use in salads. I didn't want too sweet a flavor.

Why eat Autumn Olive berries?

I like the berries because they have that cranberry flavor that we associate with eating game in the fall months. But the best reason is that it is an unexpectedly rich source of lycopene ... nearly 15 times that of raw tomatoes.
Picking the berries

Not all Autumn Olive bushes are equal. Before you start loading your buckets, roam your picking area and taste them. I find that bushes that get morning sun, but shade from 11:00 AM on yield the sweetest berries. The sweeter the berry, the less sugar you will need. Although sweet is a relative term here ... these berries are a might tart. I look for plump bright red berrries. I use a shopping bag as my bucket and place the fruit laden branch inside the bag and strip them from the branch. For rthis recipe you will need 4 cups of pulp. I had to pick about 7 cups of berries.

Autumn Olive Fruit Leather
4 cups of Autumn Olive Berry pulp
1 Tbsp Lemon juice (optional)
2 Tablespoons local honey (helps make the leather more pliable)
10 drops of liquid Stevia

To make the berry pulp, add one half cup of water to every 4 cups of berries and boil on the stove until the seeds have separated from the berry. (I actually added sprigs of mint to the berries at this stage. It is also where you would add the lemon juice if using.) Run through a food mill or a sieve and return pulp to a saucepan on the stove. Add the honey and Stevia. If you want a sweeter fruit leather, then add sugar one tablespoon at a time to the simmering pulp, tasting for desired sweetness. Lay a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet and spread the pulp on the parchment to a 1/8-1/4 inch thickness. Place in a 140 degree oven (mine doesn't stay that low so I did mine at 170 degrees) for 10-12 hours. You can tell if it is ready by peeling it from the parchment and by touching it in the center of the tray. When it is done it will be tacky but not sticky. Also when it has cooled it is more likely to be less sticky than when you test it when it is warm.

Storing the fruit leather

I decided to cut mine in half lengthwise. I stored one half by rolling it in plastic wrap and putting it in the freezer. The second half I halved again and put a plastic wrapped roll in the fridge and the other half I cut up into little pieces to use in salads where I would normally use dried cranberries. These I stored in a glass jar.

Distractions from the garden

There is not much happening in the garden. I have little to show for a fall crop save a few undiscovered potatoes, some Brussels sprouts the size of my baby fingernail and some scrawny kale and Swiss chard. The next real task is to prepare the second of two garlic beds for planting mid-month.

So I have been amusing myself building garden structures. Last year when Janice Shields came to the arboretum, I made a pea trellis which has served me well this season. Yesterday Janice returned, and I spent 5 hours with her and other neighbors as we each built our own rustic garden bench. Pretty spiffy, huh?

Personal Stonehenge

It is equinox and I know because the sun rises over my birdbath to mark the day when I stand in my bedroom door and look out onto the field. My own personal Stonehenge

Heirloom Tomato Tart

I've been so busy COOKing from the garden there has been little time left to WRITE about it. Before all your tomatoes disappear, consider making this tomato tart suggested to me by my friend with the night blooming Cereus.

Heirloom Tomato Tart

3 lbs ripe firm tomatoes
pate brise (I just use one pkg of Pillsbury roll out pie crust)
2 heads garlic

3/4 c cheese (fontina, cheddar, aged gouda,etc.)

olive oil

salt, pepper
handful fresh basil

Preheat oven to 350. Cut off top of garlic head, drizzle with olive oil, wrap in tin foil, place on a cookie sheet, and roast until soft. Cool. Squeeze out cloves into a small bowl, mash with a fork and reserve.

Press pie dough into a thin tart pan with a removable bottom, Extend crust up around edges about 1 inch, fold and crimp. Refrigerate about 30 min. Remove from fridge, spread roasted garlic evenly on crust, and sprinkle about 1/2 cheese on.

Preheat oven to 450. Slice tomatoes and "pave" them on the crust, overlapping as you go. (if using heirlooms, here's your chance to alternate colors...a great effect) Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Place tart pan on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 min. Reduce oven temp to 425, sprinkle with remaining cheese, (I add more if I feel like it, because I'm a cheese girl) and bake for 20 to 30 more minutes or until brown on edges . My recipe says if the crust gets too brown too fast to cover it with foil, but I've never had that problem. Remove from oven , sprinkle with about a handful of chopped or shredded fresh basil and cool on a wire rack for about 20 min. CAREFULLY push out of outer edges of tart pan, holding onto the bottom, and slide onto a big plate. Yum
A warning ... this requires time, so it is best made in the mid afternoon and served at room temperature. The roasting of the garlic and the making and the chilling of the crust is 40 minutes. The assembly is 10 minutes. The cooking is 60 minutes and the cooling time is 20. Two hours and 10 minutes before you can slice into it. BUT IT IS WORTH IT !!! I've made it three times already this summer.

Night Blooming Cereus

Well the local night blooming Cereus named "Audrey" may have just made a a new North American record for number of blooms in a single night. We counted 23 on Friday night. Unfortunately my flash was not cooperating for the entire event, but here are a few of the scenes from the festivities.


Look at that delicate reproductive apparatus Audrey sports ... eerily hermaphroditic. The last time I posted bout Audrey, I received a comment from a reader in Hawaii who shared with me a link to a plant that grows on a wall surrounding her church in Hawaii.

A Moment of Gratitude

I have started to take it all for granted ... the garden and its bounty. It seems a natural act to wander to the garden gate at the dinner hour and forage for green beans, a perfectly ripe tomato, some fresh basil, and a zucchini to put on the grill. What a privilege to have this bounty a few steps away from my kitchen. When you start finding tomato seeds in your hair, you know you have been a little TOO caught up in harvest management, and it is easy to forget how you waited and waited for that first asparagus spear in the spring, the first handful of green beans you could bring to the table, and oh yes a time when all tomatoes in your garden were in a perpetual state of green.

And yet, in the yin and yang that is so present when you are close to the earth, amid this bounty are the signs of its demise ... the sounds of geese in the sky in the early morning, the shortening of the days, the search for the evening sweatshirt. These harbingers of winter, however faint, seem to carry much more weight than do my little seedlings pushing through the earth in spring.