I've never been a fan of the holiday as far as I can remember. And I recall long ago people finding that strange because I liked to eat. But I think my earlier childhood rejections of the holiday had to do with having off from school, but dedicating the day to family matters. It wasn't until perhaps high school where after family was taken care of I might be able to leave the house after 8pm to hang out with friends. What was I giving thanks for if I still wasn't able to do what I wanted on that day?
But now that I am older, and don't live near my family, you would think I'd get to do what I want on that day and be grateful. No. Usually people like to make their Thanksgiving celebration take a good part of the day. So maybe you can go on a dawn patrol in the morning before having to be at someone's house by 2pm. You could get a legitimate tour or hike in if you only needed to arrive after 5pm. So I don't get to give thanks for having a day in the mountains.
But in all honesty, turkey is usually a pretty boring meal. And most people over cook it, or don't brine it, and only the dark meat ends up juicy. Not particularly enjoyable. Sides are often hit or miss. And to top it off, pumpkin is one of my least favorite dessert pies. (And I don't have a recollection of even liking it before high school.)
Today we went and played in the snow and then Jennifer made pork ribs, mac and cheese and brussel sprouts for our Thanksgiving dinner. So much to be thankful for! And to top it off we headed over to a friends for dessert and had Marionberry pie, pecan pie and ice cream. Celebration.
So another dispute I have with Thanksgiving is that it is a harvest festival. And apparently before Abraham Lincoln set firm that it would be the third Thursday in November, many states celebrated it at different times. This makes sense, and is reinforced by the timing of Canadian Thanksgiving. The end of harvest in Maine or Michigan comes much earlier than the end of harvest in Georgia or Texas. Here in the Seattle, we still have kale and root veggies, but we may have them all winter. The summer harvest season ended a while ago and late November is not the time to celebrate all the wonders the earth has provided us.
Also, the meal that we mimic in this country to celebrate is usually of foods from the northeast like cranberries and turkey. In my new home of the Pacific Northwest, turkeys are not native, so why do we eat them? If we had to stick to a bird, perhaps the ptarmigan? But a proper Thanksgiving meal here should perhaps have salmon as the main protein. Although I don't know how many people would get behind salal berry sauce?
I had a good day today, and Jennifer and I along with Mirabelle will do our Thanksgiving tradition tomorrow morning. Head down to Carkeek Park and watch the salmon spawn. And Mirabelle and I will get to attend our Friendsgiving on Saturday while Jennifer works.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Are things about to turn around?
It has been two years since my last post. I got the new tomato garden up and running. It didn't get completed until the end of this past winter, with mostly compost. I think it needs some straight soil. I feel it may be draining too easy. The completed garden at the end of February:
It has been tough to keep up with the garden let alone type a blog entry. So the garden didn't do too well this year. Well, at least I got about 30 heads of garlic. We had lots of beans, but many got too big and rotted on the vine. Broccoli was a bust, but I am blaming that on the purple finches for eating it. (Perhaps an unpredicted result of holly tree removal.) I pulled it out today as it didn't seem worth keeping and the aphids were starting to get thick on it.
The big news is that the apple trees are completing their second year in the ground and are, for the most part, thriving. We were in Yellowstone when it came time to protect them from apple maggots, so none of the Akane survived. I only had six honeycrisp on the tree, and only one appears to be maggot free. Although I was able to salvage fruit off four of the other five, so not a total loss. And the one that is maggot free is the size of a softball! (It weighed in at one and three quarters pounds!)
Mirabelle definitely helps out more in the garden, but also reaps many of the rewards. She is always munching on green beans in the yard, and the two of us will sit at a huckleberry or blueberry bush picking and eating for a while in the evenings. (Now that it is late summer that means hanging out at the raspberry patch and picking and eating.)
For the first time ever I purchased cover crop seeds. I'm hoping this will make my new garden beds a little more robust for next season. We can only wait and see.
It has been tough to keep up with the garden let alone type a blog entry. So the garden didn't do too well this year. Well, at least I got about 30 heads of garlic. We had lots of beans, but many got too big and rotted on the vine. Broccoli was a bust, but I am blaming that on the purple finches for eating it. (Perhaps an unpredicted result of holly tree removal.) I pulled it out today as it didn't seem worth keeping and the aphids were starting to get thick on it.
The big news is that the apple trees are completing their second year in the ground and are, for the most part, thriving. We were in Yellowstone when it came time to protect them from apple maggots, so none of the Akane survived. I only had six honeycrisp on the tree, and only one appears to be maggot free. Although I was able to salvage fruit off four of the other five, so not a total loss. And the one that is maggot free is the size of a softball! (It weighed in at one and three quarters pounds!)
Mirabelle definitely helps out more in the garden, but also reaps many of the rewards. She is always munching on green beans in the yard, and the two of us will sit at a huckleberry or blueberry bush picking and eating for a while in the evenings. (Now that it is late summer that means hanging out at the raspberry patch and picking and eating.)
For the first time ever I purchased cover crop seeds. I'm hoping this will make my new garden beds a little more robust for next season. We can only wait and see.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Harvest Time Again
Unfortunately not as bountiful in years past as I am still tending more to my daughter than to the soil.
This morning I made salsa from our yard with added items of cilantro and lime which I do not grow. After that, I spent an hour picking about two pounds of blackberries, 12 pears, and a few walnuts. It looks like the blackberries have a week or two more at best, depending on the patch location. While the pears seem to be just ripening. Jennifer actually told me they weren't ready when I brought them home. And of course, the walnuts don't seem to be ready either. I'm trying an experiment where I shook a few off the tree and brought them home to see if they dry to get the husks off. If I wait too long, the crows will get them all.
I readied the tomatoes and peppers for the final push and took some foliage off to hasten the ripening of the fruits. I also harvested about one plant worth of potatoes as well. The garden is looking a bit sorry right now as there is not much left. A row of beans, some carrots and shallots, and some struggling broccoli.
Right now I look forward to getting some garlic in the ground in the next few weeks and the final prep to plant our "orchard", berry patch and expand our garden. But I'll have to finish removing two very invasive and difficult to remove species: English Laurel and Holly. Once they are out, I'll be planting our two apple trees. I have laid out space for a (rasp)berry patch and I will move my tomato and pepper growing to the south side of the garage to give them better warmth. Hopefully I'll double my blueberry bushes from three to six, but we'll see about that.
This morning I made salsa from our yard with added items of cilantro and lime which I do not grow. After that, I spent an hour picking about two pounds of blackberries, 12 pears, and a few walnuts. It looks like the blackberries have a week or two more at best, depending on the patch location. While the pears seem to be just ripening. Jennifer actually told me they weren't ready when I brought them home. And of course, the walnuts don't seem to be ready either. I'm trying an experiment where I shook a few off the tree and brought them home to see if they dry to get the husks off. If I wait too long, the crows will get them all.
I readied the tomatoes and peppers for the final push and took some foliage off to hasten the ripening of the fruits. I also harvested about one plant worth of potatoes as well. The garden is looking a bit sorry right now as there is not much left. A row of beans, some carrots and shallots, and some struggling broccoli.
Right now I look forward to getting some garlic in the ground in the next few weeks and the final prep to plant our "orchard", berry patch and expand our garden. But I'll have to finish removing two very invasive and difficult to remove species: English Laurel and Holly. Once they are out, I'll be planting our two apple trees. I have laid out space for a (rasp)berry patch and I will move my tomato and pepper growing to the south side of the garage to give them better warmth. Hopefully I'll double my blueberry bushes from three to six, but we'll see about that.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Bhut Jolokia
So I know it is no longer the hottest chile on the planet. I don't really care about that. I became fascinated with the ghost chile a while ago due to the hype of it being the hottest. Sure, it is usually around three times hotter than a habenero, but the flavor is what interests me. I love a habenero for the flavor. So delightfully fruity and sweet. Of course, you have to take the heat with the sweetness, but that is merely a minor drawback. I am wondering if the ghost chile will be the same and I cannot wait to dig into the pepper to find out. Now off to find a recipe.
I purchased my pepper at the Ballard farmers' market from Alvarez Farms from Yakima. They usually have a large assortment of chilies and they are organic. With no time or luck finding a recipe, I went to an old faithful that Jennifer and I use with the habenero. This recipe, which we drop the tortillas from (and the mint) is a great topping for vanilla ice cream. So after finally procuring a pint of ice cream, I made the sauce. Not before having a few bites of the chile raw of course. After the first bite (about one square cm of flesh), I felt it compared equally to the habenero. The second bit was a different story. I got the hiccups, and felt he heat in my upper sinus as well as my chest. Something I had not felt before. I quickly grabbed a spoonful of yogurt to mellow it, but it was too late. The sauce combined with ice cream however, was quite mellow with mild heat. Hard to place a definition on the taste of the Bhut Jolokia too. I though upon initial bite that it might taste like a cherry. But when laying down to sleep after eating it, I thought perhaps apricot? It had a sweet taste that reminded me of a tree fruit, although I could not place which one. Once in the pineapple sauce, it did not express flavor as well. Perhaps I didn't use enough?
I purchased my pepper at the Ballard farmers' market from Alvarez Farms from Yakima. They usually have a large assortment of chilies and they are organic. With no time or luck finding a recipe, I went to an old faithful that Jennifer and I use with the habenero. This recipe, which we drop the tortillas from (and the mint) is a great topping for vanilla ice cream. So after finally procuring a pint of ice cream, I made the sauce. Not before having a few bites of the chile raw of course. After the first bite (about one square cm of flesh), I felt it compared equally to the habenero. The second bit was a different story. I got the hiccups, and felt he heat in my upper sinus as well as my chest. Something I had not felt before. I quickly grabbed a spoonful of yogurt to mellow it, but it was too late. The sauce combined with ice cream however, was quite mellow with mild heat. Hard to place a definition on the taste of the Bhut Jolokia too. I though upon initial bite that it might taste like a cherry. But when laying down to sleep after eating it, I thought perhaps apricot? It had a sweet taste that reminded me of a tree fruit, although I could not place which one. Once in the pineapple sauce, it did not express flavor as well. Perhaps I didn't use enough?
Friday, October 14, 2011
Chile Harvest
So for weeks I have been attempting to harvest the chilies. I had a plant of fully red cayenne, and some ripe Bulgarian Carrot as well. I didn't have much hope for the jalapenos to turn red, and surprisingly the last of the corno di toro weren't going to ripen either. But it is mid October, and I should be lucky I am getting a harvest at all, with the minimal time I've put into the garden this year.
In previous years I wind up making lots of salsa at the end of the season with my remaining tomatoes. Last year I pickled two pints of jalapenos at the end of the season, and dried the cayenne. This year I went for pepper jelly. I searched the Internet for recipes and found they used a lot of sugar. (What's with that?) I haven't cared to do the research for the science behind lots of sugar in canning. Perhaps there is none? Anyway I had to search to find a low sugar recipe and found one decent one on the Ball website.Most of the recipes on the Internet are weak, and call for a bulk to be bell peppers. I wanted to use only hotter chilies and modified the recipe accordingly. Also, my harvest did not yield as much as expected, and I had to half the recipe. (Actually a little less than half.)
I split and seeded the fruit by hand, but used the food processor for the mincing. Rubber gloves are nice for handling that many chilies as well. I started with about a dozen each of cayenne and jalapeno, and about a half dozen each of Bulgarian Carrot and Corno di Toro. The Corno di Toro making up about one cup of minced, while the others combined to make another cup of minced fruit. I shorted the vinegar and sugar a bit from the half recipe on the website, and also just used a heaping tablespoon of the low sugar pectin. From what I could taste off the spatula before canning, it was delicious. I probably won't last a week before I pop one jar open. And for reference, I was able to mostly fill four half pint jars with the result.
In previous years I wind up making lots of salsa at the end of the season with my remaining tomatoes. Last year I pickled two pints of jalapenos at the end of the season, and dried the cayenne. This year I went for pepper jelly. I searched the Internet for recipes and found they used a lot of sugar. (What's with that?) I haven't cared to do the research for the science behind lots of sugar in canning. Perhaps there is none? Anyway I had to search to find a low sugar recipe and found one decent one on the Ball website.Most of the recipes on the Internet are weak, and call for a bulk to be bell peppers. I wanted to use only hotter chilies and modified the recipe accordingly. Also, my harvest did not yield as much as expected, and I had to half the recipe. (Actually a little less than half.)
I split and seeded the fruit by hand, but used the food processor for the mincing. Rubber gloves are nice for handling that many chilies as well. I started with about a dozen each of cayenne and jalapeno, and about a half dozen each of Bulgarian Carrot and Corno di Toro. The Corno di Toro making up about one cup of minced, while the others combined to make another cup of minced fruit. I shorted the vinegar and sugar a bit from the half recipe on the website, and also just used a heaping tablespoon of the low sugar pectin. From what I could taste off the spatula before canning, it was delicious. I probably won't last a week before I pop one jar open. And for reference, I was able to mostly fill four half pint jars with the result.
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