Cold but still pulling in some green!

After a week in Tucson Arizona, I arrived home in the warm arms of my husband, thankfully, as it was 39 degrees out.  We had a hard freeze while I was gone and lost half of my yellow bean plants but the others are still full of blossoms.  I spent a good hour picking these veggies for this week.  Carrots, Lettuce, mustard greens, radishes, 3 white eggs I found that were not in nesting boxes, bad little hens (you always have to look everywhere with free range hens) yellow beans and of course Swiss Chard.

Mexican Pot Roast
First night home I made a mexican pot roast in the crock pot.  I rubbed Cumin and Ancho Chili Powder on the meat (chuck roast) salted and peppered and laid it on a bed of 1 lb. Carrots, 1lb roma tomatoes (I used frozen from the garden but you can use a 14 oz can, undrained; 1 lb. of roasted hatch chilies, 4 roasted jalapenos and 1 medium onion sliced.  I set it on high for the first two hours, then low the last two hours.
The meat fell apart and I served it with a garden salad and warm torillas.

Radishes, greens and all!
Radishes are great to grow because you get your rewards so soon.  And if you have been following my blog, you know I eat the whole radish, greens and all.  Last night I prepared them and added a new taste: Pine Nuts! It was fabulous!
1 lb. while radishes, greens attached , well washed and root tips clipped off
After washing the radishes and letting them drain, cut the radish in half leaving each half connected to some of the greens.
Heat 2 TBSP of Olive Oil in a saute pan, add two cloves garlic, minced, and saute until toasted but not too brown.  Add radishes and 1/4 cup dry white wine.  Saute radishes and gently turn them to suate evenly.  Salt and pepper to taste, add 1 tbsp of lemon juice and saute for another two minutes until the leaves are wilted.  Add 2 TBSP Pine Nuts and saute until slightly toasted.  Serve immediately.  The buttery flavor of the pine nuts adds a wonderful flavor to the crunchy wine flavored radishes!
Enjoy!

Anyone know a good animal psychologist?

I have a pet rooster!  Yes, he loves me so much, as soon as he sees me he fluffs up, runs over and dances around my feet.  He's been doing this for a few weeks now but now he also follows me around when ever I am outside.  And when I say follows, I mean right under my feet and won't let even a few inches in between he and myself.  He coos and crows and flaps his wings and ruffles his feathers.  Yesterday he even pulled my hand to himself, jumped on my gloved hand and starting humping it.  I was trying to open the freshened waterer.  He was so excited that I bent down, he jumped right on.
Now I know I am attractive,  but to a 3 pound rooster I don't see much commonality!
I defintiely spoiled him too much.  He has 26 poulettes just dying for his attenditon and he only sees me. He's like a totally trained rooster.  I can make him dance in circles around me or just jump up and down or peck at my boots, just by the way I talk to him.
What do I do?  How do I teach a rooster a proper separation?  Will it occur eventually?  He's quite big now although only 4 1/2 months.  I guess I need to give him some more time. 
Situation is quite hilarious actually!

How many pounds in a peck?

Since it's fruit season and frost has fallen on our tomatoes, it's time to get out those old recipes for processing fruit.
My favorite recipe is for Green Tomato Piccalilli that my Mom gave me.  Delicious and makes great gifts. Christmas is just around the corner. 
So, the recipe calls for 1/2 a peck of tomatoes.  What the heck is a "Peck"?  It is, actually, a dry measure and a peck of tomatoes is 13 pounds.  So 1/2 a peck is 6 & 1/2 lbs of tomatoes.

Harriet will be happy that I finally posted this.

Terry  Dziura's Green Tomato Piccalilli
1/2 peck of green tomatoes
1 pint of small cucumbers
1 grren pepper
2 medium onions
1 quart cider vinegar
1/4 lb. pickling salt
1/4 lb. sugar
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp whole clove

Slice vegetables thinly. Place in a large bowl and toss in the salt.  Mix thoroughly. Cover the bowl and set aside for 12 hours or over-night. Drain well and press to get as much liquid out as possible. Heat the vinegar, sugar and spices, bring to a boil.  Pack veggies into sterilized jars and pour hot liquid in to fill.  Leave 5/8 in of space in top of jar.  Clean rim and add seal.  Place in water bath and process as usual.

I lost many of our tomato plants this year to the drought.  If anyone has left over green tomatoes that they don't plan on frying up for dinner, I will take them off your hands!

Half a hoop house and lots more swiss chard

Two weekends ago we worked on our hoop house.  Mom was visiting from Quebec, it was sunny and 72 degrees and while Steve made the plans for the hoop house and hauled the wood to the garden, Mom and I went to weed everything.
We cleaned out the berry bushes and around the eggplant and peppers.  We fertilized everything with worm castings tea and trimmed the pole bean plants.
We built half the hoop house and then completed the frame on the ground.  One more weekend and we should be ready for cover.  Steve had an older storm door from the house that we replaced and he installed it in the hoop house. So that's ready too.  It makes a funny skeleton right now.

I'm still picking cantaloupe, jalapeno peppers, beets and carrots.  New yellow beans are starting now.  They are long and skinny, like the french green beans but they are yellow.  Just beautiful.  My winter box of lettuce is full of bright green leafy lettuce.  Lots of mustard greens too. The mustard greens are pretty enough for a vase.

We lost a couple of hens in the last two weeks.  We are down to 27 hens and 1 baby rooster.  He missed me while I was away last week.  He has learned his sex dance.  He dances around my feet and fluffs up to show his colors.  Now I have to teach him to do it for the hens and not me.  Any suggestions?  The hens are giving us 12 eggs a day now.  Eggs available for sale!

I made some chile tonight with roasted chilis, garlic, jalapenos and onions from the garden.  Corn muffins with jalapenos from the garden too.  Apple crumble for dessert. (apples from our trees).

Tomorrow nights dinner will include mustard green salad with pears and goat cheese.  Yummy.

This weekend will be another picking weekend.  Apples and pears.  Sound familiar?

Apples and Pears! Apples and Pears!

Warm days and cool nights make for crisp apples and beautiful yellow pears. Unfortunately, with the drought, the pears are ripening now and so are the apples! Yikes!  My fingers are brown, so are my nails because I have peeled so many apples.  I can't keep up.  If you want to know if I am hiding, NO, I am still peeling apples.  Every waking moment will be spent peeling and preserving apples and then the pears.  Ginger pear marmalade is my favorite.  It has candied lime peel in it.  Tart and fabulous with seared pork chops.  Yummy!  I need to buy more jars.
The baby rooster has been moved in with the hens.  He 's still skiddish and can climb and sit at the top of his fence when the hens get too roudy, but he will soon notice them more than me.  As soon as he sees me, he runs and sits on my feet.  I am his mommy after all. I spoiled him only a little bit.
I am still harvesting cantalope this month.  I have about 10 left in the garden.  Sweeter than anything you buy in the store.
By the end of the month, I will plant my garlic for the spring. And start planting my winter boxes.  Carrots, more beets and kale will be planted there.
Steve cut the grass for the first time since April.  No hay yet but at least we have a bit of green again.  It sure looks better than a sea of dried brown nothing.  This drought has been horrrible. Hopefully it was a one year thing.

Hurricane Issac brings much needed rain

I know hurricanes reek havoc on the southern part of the country but after having only a few inches of rain in Missouri for the past nine months, it was great to see a full day of light rain from hurricane issac make it's way to us in the Kansas City area from the gulf.
The chickens were out all day and really didn't now what the rain was.  They weren't old enough to reremember the last time it rained.  The water should help the apple, peach and pear trees, not to mention all the trees that made it through the drought.  We lost half of our landscaping shrubs.  Oh well, you can eat those anyway!
The grapevines are still questionable.  We'll see how they do in the next few months.

I've been watering the garden almost everyday.  Cantalopes are doing well, peppers and carrots survived.  Not much else.  Some swiss chard, it really is hard to kill, and a few tomato plants have survived and I see some small green tomatoes growing.
I started planting for fall.  Two kinds of cauliflower, white and cheddar (yellow).  They are doing well.  Some green beans and a small batch of radishes and carrots.  I will plant some more pumpkins and pole beans when I get back home from new york.  And I have to buy some herb seeds for parsley and seed garlic.  It will be time to plant that as well very soon.
All in all we are proud of our harvest this year, it was 3 times more than last year, but this fall since most of the summer growth fried in the sun, we will build our hoop house and cold frames so we can start 2013 early.  Next year we will do even better.  Maybe enough to sell some!!!

One final note about fall fruit harvest is the biggest we had since moving here.  My apple trees adopted from Jim are overwhelmingly full.  I have to head over and pick another 10 gallons or so of ripe apples.  I will can apple pie filling.  These apples are a sweet and mellow flavor but boosted with lemon jiuse and nutmeg, clove and cinnamon, make outstanding pie filling.  Steve just wanted to eat it from the jar.  "Forget the crust, just give me vanilla ice cream" he called. Ha! It does make pretty good apple sauce also.
Next month, it will be the pears.  The branhces are still so full, they are hanging down to the ground.  I will be cooking pears for months also.  Ginger pear marmalade with lime is a favorite. I'll have tons this year.  I better order more canning jars.  If you know anyone who wants to get rid of some canning jars, let me know.

Morning workout, digging up potatoes and onions

With the temperatures still in the hundreds and even at 6:00 AM it is 80 degrees, it's the best time to get out early to finish my digging. Purple, red and white potaoes and white, yellow and red onions.
All dug and set out to cure.
They say theres a chance of rain tomorrow.  The tomato plants have stopped growing and are looking pretty crispy, even though I water them everyday.  Melons are still okay for now. 

What amazes me is my oriental long beans are still thriving.  Every morning I go out and there are new 12 inch long beans appearing that were not there the night before.  They seem to grow in 12 hours.  I get about 1 lb a day.  Definitely worth planting twice as many next year.  These thin long green beans are excellent in stir fries.