A New Kind of Candy

I have been wrestling with a wicked head cold all week long.  Thankfully I am feeling 100% from the neck down, but from the neck up I am miserable and pathetic, you all know that look....watery eyes, chapped nose and upper lip, and the nasally voice that no one can understand.  Nothing like a good cold to put the brakes on one's indoor seed sowing and canning intentions.  I would scatter seeds and dusty soil-less mix with every sneeze.  Gathering supplies out in the cold shed is not so appealing.  Trying to make a final decision on what tomato varieties to sow is not so appealing.  Juggling hot jars and boiling liquids is not so appealing.  Hmph.

This lack of gardening happenings is however, a good opportunity to do something else I have been meaning to do, which is to show you all a fun gift I received over Christmas:

Those are not candy coated confections, but instead are clay and compost coated seeds.  My sister thoughtfully chose the 'Herbal Tea Selection', and I just think this garden candy is fabulous!

Lemon Balm, Stinging Nettle, Borage, and Chamomile bon bons.  These garden truffles have even been dusted with things like coffee, pepper, and cinnamon- the creators organic method of trying to keep pests  from enjoying your garden confections.

Love it!

First Frost

It feels like November in New England.  The fire is burning, 

cozy boots are on,

the bird feeder has been filled,

and the trees are looking bare.

AND.......

we had our first frost last night.  Soon I will be digging dahlias-  YAY!

***

Looks like my timing was just right yesterday when I harvested some more rosemary, sage, and chives for freezing.  (For more information on that go here.) I also picked some orange thyme and threw them in the container as they were rather than stripping the leaves.  Lazy gardener.

 I tried my hand at rosemary propagation (again).  Last year my first attempt at rosemary cuttings failed, but it was a bit haphazard.  This year I did it the "right way", no shortcuts.  Fingers crossed.

The pots were filled with a 50/50 mix of peat and a perlite substitute (I had some vermiculite mixture on hand).  Then 2-3 inch cuttings were taken and stripped of bottom leaves before being dipped in rooting hormone.

In the pot they went and the tops were pinched back to promote branching.  I have them under a cloche in attempt to keep them from being dried to a crispy death by the wood stove.

***

Yesterday was a busy day on the homestead.  The kitchen was put to good use with a pot of lentil-vegetable soup on the stove-top, and a chard tart, roasted potatoes, and Halloween Cookies in the oven.

(Chard Trat Recipe HERE.)

LaRatte Fingerlings & Baby Georgia Jets

A concentrating three year old.

I love cooking a meal centered around home grown produce!

I also took stock of my current stash from the garden.  The results are not bad, but I will post on that another day- this entry is lengthy enough already!!  While writing this my son spied a bird through one of the sky-lights....this thing is big and beautiful!  It doesn't appear to be a Red Tail (our usual hawk in the trees) at first glance, we will need to do a bit of investigation. The quality is not great, but that is what happens when you zoom through a screened bathroom sky-light.  Majestic isn't it?

(Here is another shot for scale, this was a good sized hawk sitting in a tree that dwarfs my 2 story house.)

Preserving Herbs

I really hate to see all the garden herbs go to waste when cold weather arrives.   I was able to winter over sage and rosemary last year with some straw and row cover, but there was nothing to harvest for the coldest part of our New England Winter.   If I wanted fresh herb flavor it was coming from the plastic containers in the produce isle.

Many sources recommend freezing herbs as an alternative to drying for preservation, and some are actually preferable this way due to their hight water content (like sage for example).  This will be my first year preserving them in this manner though I have purchased and cooked with frozen herbs in the past with good results.   So far it is going very simply, I have put up chives, rosemary, and sage to date.

Sage leaves were frozen whole, the chives and rosemary were snipped and chopped before being frozen. It is best to lay them out in a single layer before popping them in for the freeze treatment to prevent a clump of solid 'whatever' being the final outcome.

I have some small freezer containers (Tupperware used to make some special for this purpose, and they probably still do) that will barely take up any space for long-term storage.  The sage leaves I prefer to keep whole for things like seasoning the cavity of a roasting squash or chicken, so I left them this way as they can always be chopped up prior to being added to a dish.  They are being housed in a canning jar once frozen since they require a bit more space.

I dried some basil in the oven earlier in the season, and the dill and cilantro are sadly long gone.  I need to continue to add to my current stash and should also think about adding oregano and mint to the list.  I think this freezing thing will be a big hit this winter when we have fragrant sage for roasts, and zesty chives for topping potatoes, eggs, and nachos within quick reach in the freezer.  Anyone else out there freezing herbs for later use?

(HAPPY GARDENING!!)

Garlic Chive Pesto

This my friends, is my new favorite thing to eat:  Garlic Chive Pesto.  Now there are two kinds of "garlic chives" out there.  I have been growing the traditional hollow chive that has a garlic flavor to it; there is also the 'Chinese Leek' variation of garlic chives which is the one I am currently having a culinary love affair with (which is said to be sold as "Gow Choy" in Chinese Grocers).  I have seeds on order, but the bad news is that I won't have some serious G.C. square footage going until next year.  How sad for me.

In my haste I never took a picture of the clump of G.C. chives my thoughtful friend Naomi brought to me yesterday.  Here is what was left over in the spinner.....it may be hard to tell from the photograph, but the leaves of this variety are actually flat like a blade of grass.  Flat and yummy.  Mmmm.......

So there you have it, a bowl of the green stuff- ready to be piled onto a cracker, chip, chicken, pasta,  some string cheese, or a plain old spoon.  ♡  I added olive oil, a grind or two of sea salt, a handful of raw cashews, and a good amount of lemon juice to make this pesto.  Oh, and a pinch of suger to compliment the lemon juice.  I am in heaven.  Seriously, I find this stuff that good!

(Thank-you Naomi!!)

Ready to Sow (Well Almost)

Dang is Johnny's fast!  I just ordered this stuff 2 days ago, and it is here!  I am equipped to sow, aside from not having the Vermont Compost Fort Vee mix for the soil blocker.  I do however have organic potting mix in the basement from last year's bulk order.  (Did I mention the puppy shredded anything plastic and gardening related this Fall and Winter?  Somehow she found and destroyed all of it.  She won't be able to shred the blocker now will she.)

There was a recipe included with the blocker (Eliot Coleman's), but I went with the recommend bagged mix since I can get it at a decent price through the NOFA bulk order.  The problem is that it might not be in before I want to start those maters.  No worries though, I also purchased some Cow Pots.  Ever see the "poo-pot" episode of Dirtiest Jobs?  (Just in case you missed it back in the day and are curious:  http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirty-jobs-poo-pot.html - check it out!)  I will probably transplant into the poo pots rather quickly this year, then bury the pot and all when they go into the quart size containers.  Hoping for happy roots!

As for seed flats I love the domes for germinating and keeping the delicate new seedlings moist.  I ordered a 'kit' that came with different sized cell Pro-Trays to keep the soil blocks company.  This year I will most likely be germinating my fall sowings in a flat wherever possible since my seeds/seedlings were snacks for creatures this past year.  Fall sowing was a complete bust!  And that giant green thing?  I am messy.  Very messy.  Not so cool when your baby veggies live in the bedroom.....this contraption should help keep the dirt where it belongs, not on the floor.   If only I bought an extra to keep in the kitchen.  :)

Ooh! I finally have my cherished Pistou Basil seeds in hand.   Last year I did a post on this favorite herb which can be found here after my plants arrived.  We LOVE this stuff sprinkled generously in salads all summer long.  It has a pleasant, mild flavor and there is no chopping involved.  Mmmm, I can almost taste it now.

Herb Butters

(Note- For some reason Blogger is not editing correctly, I am unable to change/control paragraph spacing. My apologies!) Herb butters are a great way to put those left-over herbs to use. This past week I did two batches, one with basil and the other with parsley. The butters can add fresh flavor to pasta, vegetables, meats, or bread. Here are the recipes:

GARLIC BASIL BUTTER

1/2 C chopped, fresh basil; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1/4 lb. butter, softened; salt and pepper to taste.

Beat ingredients together in a small bowl, wrap into a cylinder and chill. Makes about one half cup. Recipe courtesy of The Complete Book of Sauces.

GARLIC & PARSLEY BUTTER

1-1/2 bunches parsley, stems removed
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 pound butter, diced into small cubes, cold

Place the parsley, garlic, and salt in a food processor fitted with a metal chopping blade and pulse until evenly minced and well blended.
Add the cubed butter to the parsley-garlic mixture. Process, scraping down the sides as needed, until the butter is softened and mixture is well blended. The butter should be light green in color.
The butter may be placed into a ramekin, or shaped into a log and rolled in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until ready for use. Makes 2 cups. The butter can be held for at least a week in the refrigerator, or frozen for several weeks. recipe courtesy of the CIA.

I used some of the parsley butter to make mashed potatoes with Yukon Golds from the garden. The kids wouldn't eat them because of the green, but that just left more for us adults! I put the butters into freezer bags and press them flat. Then all I need to do is pull a bag from the freezer and break off what ever amount I need for my recipe.

Lemon Rosemary Cookies

Rosemary, one of my favorite herbs. I am always envious of the large bushes I see growing in the Mediterranean and on the West Coast. My plants never get any bigger than the one pictured here, though some grow tall and others sprawl out. But whats not to love about an herb whos name means "dew of the sea"? Rosemary belongs to the mint family and there are many, many varieties out there. For a descriptive list visit the Mountain Valley Growers site. If only they were winter hardy in Massachusetts!

Rosemary pairs well with so many foods. It is a wonderful companion to all meats, blue cheese, and many fruits such as apples, cranberries, and citrus. It is best grown from cuttings rather than seeds, see here for instructions. This is a new discovery for me and I plan on trying it with my current plants before the winter comes.

One of my favorite yet unusual ways to use rosemary is by baking it into light lemony cookies. Below is a wonderful recipe taken from Out of the Earth: A Heritage Farm Coast Cookbook. It is a recipe I don't make often enough and I hope that it will soon become one of your favorites too!

Lemon Rosemary Cookies

• 1 C sugar, 3 tbsp. butter, softened, 2 eggs, well beaten; cream butter and sugar until fluffy with an electric mixer. Add eggs and beat thoroughly.
• 3 tsp. lemon rind, 1 tbsp. rosemary, chopped fine; fold into egg mixture.
• 1 1/2 C flour, 1/4 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. baking powder; Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Fold into egg mixture.

Drop by sm. spoonfulls onto parchment-lined cookie sheet. Flatten with cup dipped in sugar. Bake for 7 minutes at 325 degrees. Makes 2 dozen.

Pistou Basil

Recently my Pistou Basil arrived from The Cook's Garden. It is an attractive plant to add to the garden and it tastes wonderful. The fragrance and taste are more mild than a traditional basil. It's leaves which more closely resemble thyme than basil in size have been wonderful sprinkled over a mixed green salad with a bit of crumbled feta, raisins, and my favorite Brianna's Blush Wine Viniegrette dressing.

Pistou is a french version of pesto:

Pistou From Wikipedia

Pistou sauce, or just pistou, is a cold sauce made from cloves of garlic, fresh basil, and olive oil. Some more modern versions of the recipe include grated parmesan, pecorino or similar hard cheeses. Traditionally, the ingredients are crushed and mixed together in a mortar with a pestle, (pistou means pounded in the Provençal language). It is often confused with pesto with which it shares some of the same ingredients, the key difference being absence of pinoli (pine nuts), from pistou. It is a typical condiment from the Provence region of France that can be served with pasta dishes or as a spread for bread. But it is most often associated with the Provencal dish Soupe au Pistou, a minestrone like summer soup that includes white beans, green beans, tomatoes, summer squash, potatoes, and vermicelli. These ingredients can be left out or replaced as long as the soup's golden rule about summer vegetables is followed. Thus Pistou soup is not made with, for example, leeks. Some recipes incorporate the pistou into the soup just before serving. Others recommend offering the sauce at the table to be added after the soup is served.
Both pistou and pesto probably share the same origins. The Roman poet Virgil describes a sauce of crushed herbs, garlic, salt, and olive oil. A version with pinoli emerged around Genoa to become pesto, while pistou evolved in the areas around Nice.

Next year I will be sure to order a packet of seeds, this herb is already a favorite in my house!

Recipe: SOUPE AU PISTOU http://www.soupsong.com/rpistou.html