Our Gardens

Hi blog. Let's just pretend I didn't abandon you for several months.

Our first full fledged gardening attempt was a success this year. We planted potatoes, flowers, herbs, snap peas, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers. We hardly had to do anything thanks to so much rain. My dad helped us put in a rain barrel (and gutters). I only had to water the garden beds twice by faucet in a four month span (!!). I was so happy.

We got a lot of produce out of our three beds for a few months, but everything started to shrivel up by the beginning of August. We had a lot of rain sometime during the month though and we're back with at least a few things growing again. Sweet potatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, leeks, and plenty of herbs. My favorite thing growing might actually be the lemongrass. My mother-in-law gave me a piece of lemongrass that rooted, we planted it, and this thing has thrived! It's huge! I'm so stoked to walk outside and get fresh herbs and in particular ones that aren't always available (and are pricy).

We planted dahlia bulbs in February, not really knowing how well they'd grow in Austin, but for months we had tons of flowers. They're so beautiful. Being able to cut fresh flowers from your backyard is on my top ten list of things that make me happiest. At one point the bushes were producing so many flowers that I started making bouquets for friends.

Here are eggplants growing in our garden right now. This is my first time ever growing eggplant. I remember my mom growing it when I was little and I was so weirded out by the name. I hated eggs back then, so clearly eggplant was very sketchy.

 More soon!

Pennsylvania Visit & Pickling

I recently returned from a trip to Pennsylvania with my cousin Tana. It was such a relaxing trip. My parents live in the countryside and their house doesn't get at&t service and the their wi-fi is slow (sorry mom, but truth). I pretty much put down my phone when I arrive and am running around outside most of the time I'm there. A cold front came through at the beginning of the trip and one night we had a low of 52 degrees! We got to catch up with a bunch of family and spend time in my grandma's gardens.

Uncle Alan shows us the silk from a milkweed plant.

me, dad & Uncle Chris

Every night dad wanted to get ice cream...

An accidental overgrowth of garlic happened this year in the garden (we picked several 5 gallon bucket's worth), so we decided to pickle a lot of it alongside the cucumbers.

some dill, some sweet:

Well, as usual, I've been a terrible blogger. I really did make a lot of stuff this summer...but got in the habit of never turning on my computer (which was lovely). More soon (hopefully!).

Grandma's Gardens

This is my second week up in Rimersburg, PA, the town my parents are both from and much of my dad's side of the family still lives. It's a small town with rolling hills, farms and forest. My grandma has had huge gardens and orchards her whole life growing berries, apples, pears, grapes, flowers and nearly every vegetable you can think of. Today my Uncle Alan showed me the four (four!) different types of onions they have planted.

peas so good we usually eat them raw. 

husband in the garden.

garlic going to seed.

friend in the raspberry patch.

strawberry fields forever.

husband hunting for strawberries.

tomatoes.

mom and I made net covers for the blueberry plants.

I can't remember how long it's been since I've been so relaxed. Every day consists of coffee with the parents and my Uncle Alan, red & black raspberry picking, rides through the forest on the golf cart, cooking (usually treats from the garden), mushrooming (more on that soon), thrift store shopping and reading. L O V E. I'm so happy.

Copycat Costco Kale Salad & A Trip to Charleston

Last week I traveled to Charleston to visit my friend Danielle and her family. We had a great time of hanging out, eating delicious food, and going downtown. Her oldest daughter turned three while I was there and her baby was trying out new foods (I got to witness avocado). :)

 One night we stayed in and put together dinner at home. She had some kale salad that came from a mix from Costco that was delicious. It reminded me of a Whole Foods one, but better. I replicated it at home. It's so so good. I was happy to find a recipe for poppyseed dressing that uses honey instead of sugar too. 

For the salad:
Several kale leaves, sliced thin
Several brussels sprouts, sliced thin
Several broccoli florets, chopped fine
Cranberries
Sliced almonds, sunflower seeds, or walnuts

For the poppyseed dressing:
3 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs. honey
2 tsp. dijon
2 tsp. poppy seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 Tbs. red onion diced small
3 Tbs. vegetable oil (I used grapeseed oil)

Whisk all ingredients for the dressing together except the oil & onion. Slowly whisk in oil. Stir in onion.

Toss to combine & enjoy.

Veggie Soup With Chanterelles

My parents moved back to their hometown of Rimersburg, Pennsylvania this summer. Their food situation is pretty much a fantasy to me. My grandmother, uncle, and now my mom upkeep my grandmother's large gardens and orchards. My uncle also raises bees in hopes to make honey, my dad and some of his brothers hunt more deer than they have room for, and a couple of the uncles are really into mushrooming*.

The gardens give my (huge) family far too much produce and fruit to keep up with, so my mom does a ton of canning. I saw my parents at Thanksgiving and mom brought everyone crates of canned veggies and fruit. One of the highlights were a couple of jars of chanterelles.

I don't know what pulled this soup together so well, but this is hands down the best vegetable soup I've ever made. I followed a recipe something like this. Mine has carrots, portabello and chanterelle mushrooms, sweet potato, celery, onion, zucchini, jalapeno, and garlic. I used low sodium organic chicken broth as the stock. I sautaeed the veggies in a few teaspoons of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter. I let them brown well and added a bunch cippolini onion & rosemary salt one of our other grandmothers gave us. The broth turned out rich and delicious. I hope this wasn't a fluke. I'm crediting the butter, cippolini onion salt, and chanterelles (and their juice from the jar). It's delicious.

*My uncles got really into mushrooming several years ago. They're known to pull off the side of the road and look around for mushrooms anytime they're going anywhere. My favorite story is when one of my uncles took another out in the middle of nowhere to his "chanterelle spot". They walked pretty far into the woods and when they found some, my uncle said, "listen, don't you dare tell anyone about this spot!" and the other responded, "well I don't know where the hell we are so don't you worry".

homemade salad dressings

I don't remember buying any salad dressing in the past few years. I can't believe how much better tasting homemade dressing is and how easy it is to make. I always figured that it tasted so much better because it was freshly made. While this is true, Amy also pointed out that the quality of oil used in bottled dressing is typically really poor. Ew.

 My go-to dressings are a lemon-basil dressing from Real Simple, balsamic vinaigrette (I don't measure anything), and greek dressing. The secret to making a great greek dressing is to steal the olive oil you use from the jar/container of olives you're using. Or a little of the brine if there's not any oil to steal. We occasionally make a honey mustard dressing out of honey, dijon & rice vinegar. It's sooo good.

We didn't do a whole lot this weekend, but we did go to a float spa (weird and intriguing) and I started my first batch of fermented pickled carrots. The carrots will be really fun to watch over the next week. They'll start bubbling and getting foamy at the top of the jar as the bacteria does its thing. Prepping a batch of these takes less than 10 minutes. The instructions (click on photo to enlarge) just using a brine solution, black whole peppercorns, dill, garlic and the pickling vegetable of your choice (the instructor mentioned that carrots and pickling cucumbers really work best for this recipe).

This method of pickling is pretty much no fail. You follow the brine ratio and pack a clean jar with your veggies and herbs. Then it just sits and you scrape off the foam on the top for several days. And it can live in your fridge for a while and you can enjoy the healthy benefits of eating lactobacillus :).

(Instructions thanks to Kate Payne from Whole Food's class on 8/13)

Vietnamese Slaw

I love the slaw you get at Vietnamese restaurants - cabbage, mint, green onions, vinegar, sesame seeds,.. YUM. Found a recipe here that I like that uses Napa cabbage, sesame oil, rice vinegar, mint, scallions, cilantro, ginger & almonds. (How can you go wrong with that many herbs?)

 We're back from traveling from Meg's wedding and I have another month before I go back to work full time. I'll be posting more wedding stuff & pictures from our honeymoon soon.

friday!

Happy Friday! I've been a terrible blogger, and honestly I haven't made much of anything this week. Except for some cardboard-like flax seed crackers, ew! Some of my girlfriends convinced me to do a vegan cleanse with them this week- we've cut out all meat, dairy, cheese, sugar, and wheat. It's not so bad except I'm getting so bored of eating quinoa, veggies, oatmeal, veggies, veggies, .... I think I'll cheat a little this weekend, juice a couple days of the beginning of next week, and call it quits. I can't believe some people eat this exact diet all the time (you are superhuman?).

I'll leave you with my favorite quote from the girls' email exchanges this week:

"Well, I am privy to watching Stephanie's juice fast/detox here at the office. She is currently pale, watering at the eyes, clutching several packages of Aleve in one hand and some kale juice in the other. I think its going well."

 :)

Green Juice

I've wanted a juicer for about a year now and one of my aunts mailed me one she picked up at a garage sale. Eric and I love Odwalla's Superfood drink.

I made my own using kale, spinach, a granny smith apple, a gala apple, a handful of baby carrots, half of a lemon, and a couple pieces of pineapple. It's so good. Mine wasn't quite as sweet as Odwalla's; if you are going for the same taste, you would want to throw in another granny smith.

when your boyfriend isn't home for dinner...

...you get to use any vegetables you want!

My dinner tonight: cooking some broccoli and brussel sprouts and adding them to a bland soup. (I actually like that brand of soup a lot, but this soup was too boring. The bottle also doubles as a cute vase after finishing the soup too.)



I also added some shredded cheese to the soup. Much improved.

I am trying to eat pretty healthy this week after considerable amounts of unhealthy foods in the last weeks. (This will only last until Saturday though because my brother and sister and law will be in town and I want to show them all the yummy food in Austin!)

math cupcakes

Yesterday my university had "Ram's Day", where local high school seniors (mostly from Austin and Houston) come to visit HT. For the math department's table, I baked over 100 mini cupcakes and decorated them with math-y stuff.



I didn't post a picture, but last Sunday I got the cutest goody box left at my doorstop from Amy:



Notice the siamese squash and baby eggplants! So cute! I've had great veggies and herbs to be eating all week.

farm veggies

Saturday afternoon Meg and I volunteered at a local farm, Green Gate Farms.

Green Gate is one of the local farms where you can get a farmshare from in Austin. Meg and I have been considering signing up for a farmshare and splitting the goods each week. (If you're unfamiliar with farmshares, you pay and pick up a box from a farmer every week full of the current veggies/fruits/flowers/herbs that are ready at their farm).

You can actually sign up to volunteer for a couple hours on some farms and then get a discount on your weekly farmshare. Meg and I are interested in doing this in the future, so we thought we'd link up with a local farm and start volunteering some.

We helped de-clove garlics for growing, we planted some cloves to grow, and we helped set up a small irrigation system. We both don't know much about gardening and farming, so we're hoping to learn a lot through our volunteering. (I actually didn't know that a new garlic plant would grow if you stick a clove of garlic underground).









After volunteering, one of the farm owners loaded Meg and I up on zucchini, pattypan squash, hot peppers, garlic, okra and cucumbers.

That night Eric and I made whole wheat organic linguini with the sauteed zucchini, pattypan squash, garlic and onions. We used olive oil, parmesan cheese, fresh squeezed lemon juice and sea salt for the sauce. Delicious!

I've never had pattypan squash before. It's really good.

Look how cute the zucchini is! It's ribbed, so when it's sliced it has these adorable ridges:



pattypan squash:




Today I sauteed some more of the squash and some spinach and made a sandwich on chia bread. (Newest love = Chia bread. So yummy)

Eric got me into putting dijon mustard on the outside of your bread (along with a little butter) before making pressed sandwiches (or grilled cheese).

fresh veggie cream cheese

One time while visiting Meg, she made me a bagel with some veggie cream cheese she had made herself. It was soooo good! She had taken some cream cheese and added every fresh herb and vegetable she had. I can't remember everything that was in hers but I think she had onion, garlic, jalapeno, tomato, dill, cilantro, green onions, and several others.

I made some in Charleston and loved it and experimented a little. The cream cheese can get a little watery from the vegetables, so I tried drying them out a little in the sun first when I made my next batch. Not nearly as good..don't dry them out!

I made a batch a couple days ago. In our fridge we had cilantro, green onions, garlic, tomato, cucumber, basil, spinach, and carrots. It's yummy, but not quite as yummy as I remember. I think it needs to sit in the fridge a little longer and "get happy" as my mom calls it.

Thanks for the great idea Meg!