I Love This Place

The reason I bought this strip of hard-used land was that it has a wide range of soils, so I could grow a wide range of plants. Since there is only one of me to do all the gardening, I did not want to till up lots of soil. I've left the land to its own devices, except for the parts I'm actually using.

I've been amazed and delighted by the wide range of  wildflowers and the critters that use them for food.

This is Monarda punctata, colloquially known as spotted horsemint or spotted beebalm. The little horse shaped flowers, which are located between the pinkish-tinted bracts, are yellow with maroon dots. Very pretty little things.  The leaves of this plant produce an antispectic substance called Thymol. One use of it is to control mold in beehives, which may account for one of its names. They are such pretty things I hate to pull them up, but I have had to clear some of them from the garden, as they were crowding the tomato and bean plants

Another pink flower I like  is Proboscidea louisianica, known as devil's claw or unicorn plant. The young seedpods can be pickled and eaten, and are rather like pickled okra. The ripe seed pod is a vicious thing with curved spikes, but I find the fowers and leaves very pretty.  I was happy when this plant came up just outside my veggie garden.












There have been ripe dewberries for a couple of weeks now. The ripe berries are very dark purple -- delicious to eat but not very pretty to look at. Here's a photo of a berry a few days before it was ripe, when it was a beautiful liquid-red.

And for the last photo of the day, a lovely treat. I got this recipe from The Accidental Huswife's blog:

http://accidentalhuswife.blogspot.com/2009/04/eggs-poached-in-chili-with-greens.html

Eggs Poached in Chili With Greens. I'd been wishing for a good recipe for eggs, and a good recipe for greens. You can imagine my joy at finding one that combined both. It was very easy to make -- took only a few minutes. And it was very fine eating. I suspect I used more tomato in the sauce than the Huswife had in mind. I served it with avocado and tomato slices. 

Very Easy Baked Custard

Big Daddy Geoffrey, our Brahma Rooster

4 eggs
2 1/2 c. milk
sugar or other sweetener to taste
Vanilla
Nutmeg

Beat the eggs moderately well. Put the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla into a sauce pan and beat gently until mixed. Heat the mixture until hot, but not boiling. Place in baking dish, sprinkle more nutmeg over the top if desired and bake in a 325 degree oven for 40 minutes.

Lentils & Rice

Ingredients

• 1.5 cup lentils
• 1 cup brown rice
• onions to taste
  
• enough olive oil to sauté lentils, rice & onions
  
• enough water to cook rice & beans
• lemon juice, cumin, pepper, salt to taste

I use a slow cooker, but of course you can use a cooking pot of any kind, preferably a heavy one that will maintain a uniform temperature so the rice & lentils will not stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. You can avoid sticking and burning by keeping the heat low and stirring from time to time.

Clean the lentils and rice, put them into a pot, pour in the water and start the slow cooker or bring the pot to simmer. If you want to add flavor, you can sauté the rice and beans before putting them into the slow cooker, or if you are using a cooking pot on the stove, you can saute them right in the pot before adding water. Sauté the onions until they are just beginning to turn brown and add them to the rice & beans after the rice and beans have been cooking for a while.

Cook until the rice and beans are tender and ready to eat.

I like to add the other ingredients toward the end, when the lentils and rice are almost ready to serve.

Fava Beans

Suddenly, the fava beans are ready to harvest, at least it seems sudden, since I've been away in San Antonio for a couple of days.

I harvested a mixture of Egyptian fava beans and Super-agua-dulce (from Italy) this evening and prepared them as follows:

• Pick, shell, and peel beans
• Boil in water until tender
• Toss with olive oil, lemon juice, chopped parsley, chopped chives
• Salt to taste

They were heavenly! It's amazing how the flavors of these ingredients blend -- you'd swear there was meat and cheese in there somewhere! I don't know whether favas from a grocery store would be as good. I've never bought any and never eaten dried ones from the garden, so I have no idea what they're like other than freshly picked.

Spinach, also from the garden, was the perfect accompaniment. The meal took about 10 minutes to prepare once the beans were shelled and peeled. Peeling fava beans is a nuisance. But it's not so bad, really. In fact, shelling and peeling fava beans while sitting on the kitchen step looking over the herb and flower garden is downright therateuptic. Sitting there, listening to a flock of grackles who'd stop by to visit, I could view the hectic week I had at work from afar, like a distant memory of a book I read once, a long time ago.

Rabbit Recipe

1 rabbit
olive oil
pear brandy (white wine will also do, but the pear brandy is especially nice)
small bay leaf
a few sprigs of thyme
a pinch of ground mustard
salt & pepper

1.Cut the rabbit into manageable pieces.
2. Peel off most of the fat and put into some water with the liver and kidneys to make broth.
3.Put salt & pepper on the meat, then dredge the pieces of meat in flour and brown them in olive oil.
4. When the fat and organs have made a nice broth, remove them and add mustard, bay leaf (torn into 2 or 3 pieces) and thyme and pour over meat. If you like organ meat, chop the organs and add them to the meat.
5. Cook on low heat until the meat is tender (about 45 minutes).

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I cooked rabbit tonight and served it with mashed potatoes; spinach freshly picked from the garden and steamed; and a fresh lettuce salad with dressing made from olive oil, cider vinegar, dried cranberries (sweetened), and garlic. Quick apple pie for dessert. It was a dinner whose memory I will cherish forever.
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Quick apple pie:

Pour some whole wheat flour and a sprinkle of salt into a bowl. Cut in some butter. Add enough cold water to make a ball of dough. Roll the dough thin on a floured board and put it into a casserole dish or pie pan. Slice up some apples and arrange the slices on the dough. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Fold the dough up over the apple slices. Bake at 350 degrees F until apples are bubbling, crust looks done, and the kitchen smells heavenly.

I don't bother to measure anything. The whole operation (not including baking) takes about 5 minutes.

Turnip Green and Sweet Potato Soup

This is adapted from a recipe that called for adding sugar and then cooking the hell out of the greens. I am trying to limit my intake of refined sugar, and I had a sweet potatoes that I harvested in October, so I substituted the sweet potatoes for sugar. In order to prevent overcooking the greens, I added them last, after all the other ingredients were done.

INGREDIENTS

Mild flavored legume such as white, Anazazi, pinto, or cream peas (turnip greens are a winter-time crop in central Texas, so there are no fresh legumes other than baby fava beans and dried beans. I did not think fava beans would taste right in this recipe, so I used dried pintos. I rinsed, soaked, and cooked them until tender before adding them to the soup)
Fresh turnip greens, chopped - about 2 cups
Chicken broth - a couple of pints
a couple of slices of pork or lean bacon
a bulb onion, chopped
a couple of Irish potatoes, chopped
a couple of sweet potatoes, chopped
1 clove garlic
fresh herbs (thyme, marjoram, rosemary)
salt and black pepper to taste

Make the chicken broth and strain it through a fine sieve. Add Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes, onion, garlic, and cooked beans, or fresh uncooked beans if they are available. Cook until everything is tender. Add the chopped greens and herbs and cook for just a few minutes so that the greens are bright green. If they start losing their bright color, you've cooked them for too long and need to remove them from the heat immediately. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Tilapia Filet Baked in Yogurt

I found a similar recipe on the Internet and adapted it to use ingredients that are growing in the garden today. Recipe is for one person.

Cut a tilapia filet into bite-sized bits and put it into a baking dish.
Pour on enough un-flavored yogurt to pretty much cover the fish, preferably whole milk yogurt that has not had anything done to it to make it "smooth and creamy."

Cut some lemon grass, parsley and dill from the garden and, using scissors, cut the herbs into bits directly onto the yogurt-covered fish.

Cover and put into a pre-heated 350 degree oven or dutch oven on top of wood stove in which the fire has burned down to red-hot coals.

Cook until the fish is done (you can tell it's done when it flakes apart when you stick a fork into it).

Sprinkle on some chopped shallot or chives or green onion and some freshly ground black pepper just before serving.

Time to prepare: 10 minutes, including cutting herbs from garden. 15 or 20 minutes or so to cook. Cost: $2.50 for the fish; $0.50 for the yogurt. A cent or two for the olive oil and vinegar for the salad and the black pepper. Total is half or less what one would pay for a toxic meal from a fast food joint.

Serve with fresh mixed greens from the garden and fresh tomato. I do not have tomatoes growing in the garden now, as the tomato plants were all killed by a freeze back in late November. The day before the freeze, I picked all the green tomatoes off the vines and stored them in closed paper bags to ripen. Next year, I plan to try growing Long Keeper tomatoes.
http://www.southernexposure.com/productlist/prods/49125.html
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange blurb claims that they can last in storage up to six months. I'd be happy if they could last through February.

I don't mind going a couple of months (Mar - Apr) without fresh tomatoes. It makes them seem that much better when you finally have them again in the garden in May.

What I'm Harvesting

Tomatoes

Squash

Peppers

Blackeyed Peas

Mandy beans

Amaranth

Herbs

Corn (the ears are all dried up and the kernels have to be saoked before cooking)