red raspberry time.

They are here! While just beginning to ripen, I see a lot of red raspberries in our future. Jams, jellies, frozen...


I love how easy raspberries are to grow, how little space you really need for a decent return, and how delicious they are picked right from your own back yard. Yum.

back into the groove.

It is time! I didn't forget about this blog...I've just been stewing away some new ideas and projects for the upcoming year, as well as planning and planting all of our food gardens. With a family community garden plot, our home garden, and a CSA share, we have a whole season ahead of us of gardening, cooking, preserving, drying, canning and freezing. We had our first radishes this weekend, and are into our second round of greens. It is under way!

I plan to get back into the groove with cook.eat.think...growing as the garden is growing. I will be posting as we get rolling here, and will be updating the look and links as well. Looking forward to a long season!

winter garden.

While we have been busy in the kitchen we have also been out in the garden. I love yard work (yeah, I love shoveling too!). I will admit that we have a LOT of clean up after growing food plants rather than ornamental bushes, but it is worth it. The glorious weather has helped make the garden clean up even nicer. We are pulling, clipping, raking, and planting. We prepped and planted garlic and shallots. I love planting even as the cold comes. Speaking of planting...


This year we are planning to try to grow certain herbs and greens inside to see how much we can stay local for veggies even throughout the winter. Our pantry and freezer is packed with everything we preserved from farms and our garden all summer, but we still wanted fresh greens. With a sprouter we have a lot of variety throughout the winter for salads as well as bread, but we wanted more! So lets give it a shot and see how far we can go.

We plan to do a few succession plantings as we figure out what works best (or doesn't work). Our first planting::

-mustard greens
-salad bowl lettuce (cut and come again)
-spinach
-cilantro
-chives
-swiss chard
and by special request we will try
-window box roma tomato

To winter greens!

CSA Box This Week

Today in our CSA box...we haven't gotten much squash at all this year in our boxes. Winter squash is one of my favorite things, and I always look forward to it. Today we got only 1 small acorn squash and a mini butternut squash - not a good year for squash, it seems. I traded the mini butternut squash in our box for more brussel sprouts. The wonder of our garden is that we fill in the gaps of our CSA, can get quantity of our favorite items, and so even growing only 1 vine we already have a decent number of butternut squash stored away for this fall and winter!

In our box this week:: lettuce mix, arugula, beauty heart radish, leek, carrots, brussel sprouts, green cabbage, acorn squash, cilantro.

In our box this week last year.

From the garden.

In addition to our weekly CSA share, we have been getting more and more from our tiny garden. We are fermenting sauerkraut, just made lacto-fermented cucumbers as well as traditional vinegar based pickles, and are drying excess herbs as we go.

For the past week I have not been able to get out much but to water due to a back problem, but the garden keeps growing whether you are ready or not! So today I stretched my back for a bit first, dressed heavy for bugs, and headed out!

I picked bugs, pulled weeds, watered, and picked as I went. I picked: beans, swiss chard, parsley, beets, carrots, dill, cucumbers, a few small tomatoes, and a lot of herbs. Looking at everything I can see that the cucumbers, tomatoes, beans and peppers are almost ready to explode, and the pumpkins and butternut squash are out of control - growing all the way down to the alley! I planted some onions, spinach and radishes in the spots I pulled beets so we can have some more veggies this fall. I think I am going to make some beet greens soup!

CSA Box This Week...

CSA box this week: garlic scapes, young garlic, strawberries, cucumbers, basil, swiss chard, lettuce, mustard greens...

(Here is what we had last year this week...)

Our CSA farm usually has a ton of strawberries - in the box, at U-picks, and at the Farmer's Market. With all the rain and flooding they lost a large percentage of the strawberry crop. Sad! Looks like we will have to venture to other farms to get enough berries for freezing and preserves. We are looking foward to strawberry ice cream!




Our garden is doing great - we had some hail damage but then everything just popped after all the rain. We are eating radishes, swiss chard (lots!), greens and a lot of herbs. Yum.

We have had a lot of garden work recently - weeding and monitoring pests and staking...and so much of what we have been eating has just been what is in our CSA box and yard. A lot of greens and salads. So good. I know as the summer progresses we will have more variety - meaning many more recipes as well as more cooking and baking in the kitchen.

Radishes & swiss chard.

Tomatoes growing!

Raspberries getting bigger!

spring green.

I was so excited. Then I received the email from our CSA stating that due to the unseasonably cold spring, late frost(s), and super dry May, the CSA would be delayed by one week. The first time in 11 years they had to do that, they said. Since that email we have had tornadoes, hail, up to 8" of rain (in a 24 hour period), massive flooding and...and...but haven't gotten another email, so here's hoping for our first box this Thursday.


Although our CSA delayed, I was excited to be able to harvest enough salad greens from our pots for dinner - with fresh herbs too! Yay! And then today ...

I bought many pounds of fresh asparagus from a small local farmer. SO good. I blanched and bagged so that we can have asparagus for soups and stir fry for a while. Tomorrow I think I'll make some cream of asparagus soup!

almost there...

I have not been posting to this blog as much recently, but that is about to change. Only one week until our CSA pickup starts again! I have been in my normal early spring cooking funk and basically just want to eat salads ... but each spring when our CSA starts and something new appears in our box week after week I feel rejuvinated. I love the challenge of planning our meals based on what is fresh in our garden or in our box each week. Almost there!

quiche.

Mmmm Mmmm quiche. Quiche is one of those things that is good for most meals, and is nice on its own or with a fresh salad or bowl of soup. With spring comes more fresh eggs - and quiche!


easy quiche::

6 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups fresh heavy cream
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (I used Gruyere, and Gloucester cheeses)
salt & pepper to taste
dash paprika

Whatever fillings you want::caramelized onions, veggies, sausage...add about 1/2 to 1 cup

1 (9-inch) refrigerated pie crust or, make your own

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Combine the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Layer your fillings and cheese in the bottom of the pie crust, then pour the egg mixture on top. Sprinkle a little cheese on top too.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until the egg mixture is set! Cool and cut into wedges.


ingredient tip::

Eggshells, like coffee grounds, are a good addition to your garden. Save your shells - rinse them in some hot sudsy water, drain, bag, and save in your freezer until spring. You can crumble them and add to your garden beds. The eggshells add calcium and other minerals to the soil (great for tomatoes), and if you sprinkle them in a circle around your plants, they help deter slugs and snails too!

coffee.

I love coffee. It is great that we can get locally roasted, organic fair trade coffee right in town. I have a favorite - they buy directly from small farmers who use only sustainable practices, pay them fair prices (and disclose the info), and even deliver coffee locally using bikes and skateboards. Can't beat that.


After brewing, I don't throw my espresso pucks away - I save the grounds. In the summer, they store up and I take them out as each bowl fills to use in the garden immediately. In the winter, I save my grounds in bags all winter and when spring comes begin to use them to help kickstart my plants and bushes, and prepare my beds.

Coffee grounds make a great addition to plants like blueberries or rasperries and flowering bushes like lilacs, roses, and hydrangeas who like a more acid soil.

The grounds also slowly release nitrogen and make a good fertilizer when lightly sprinkled around plants before watering. It helps boost the nice dark green leaves.

Grounds also can help with certain bug issues -- they deter cutworms, mites and other detrimental bugs - just sprinkle around the base of your plants or problem areas. Slugs and caffeine don't mix, so it helps deter their destructive appetite from your plants as well.

Grounds are a good addition to your compost.

If you have houseplants, sprinkling a little on their soil every few months before watering will help give them a little boost.

Coffee grounds make a great natural (and pet/kid safe) addition to the garden. If you don't drink much coffee, no worries. Many coffee retailers now offer free bags of used grounds just for gardens (and it keeps the grounds out of the garbage cycle - bonus!).

CSA Box This Week, Seed Collecting

Today our CSA box is full of the super summer goodies. Red & green lettuce, romano beans, summer squash, eggplant, several varieties of red peppers, colored carrots, broccoli, brusselini, yellow onion, sun jewel melon, watermelon.

And yes, that is a shattered golden watermelon in the photo. My 4 year old helped carry it into the house with great care. As I unloaded the cooler, I heard a loud sound...I asked what happened and went to the living room to see it shattered on the floor and A lying UNDER the couch. He said he was "testing gravity"...lovely.


This week we had lots and lots of rain, but we did manage to bring in some seeds. A didn't mind helping with the herbs, but wasn't thrilled about the smell of the peppers as we retrieved the seeds. He has tested a few of the dill already by sprinkling the heads around, and has a bunch of new green shoots to show for it (boy the bunny loves baby dill). What he wants is to squash a pumpkin to save the seeds...he has 2 random pumpkin plants out front in the bushes that are from his squashed pumpkin "experiment" last fall, so I have a feeling we'll have many more showing up next year!

CSA Box This Week

This week in our CSA share we have romano beans, tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers, red cabbage, hakuri turnips, yellow onion, uncured garlic, basil.

In our garden we are cranking out the tomatoes. The boys and I must be picking 20+ sungold and yellow cherry tomatoes, and 2-4 ripe red ones (diff. varieties) daily. Our yard bunny is loving the low hanging tomatoes - we find at least 1 every few days still on the vine 1/2 eaten. We will have more than we can handle shortly, and I am anticipating freezing all kinds of yummy things for the fall and winter. The rest of the garden is becoming abundant too - all thanks to the hose...with no rain in site!